Progress has been made on women’s rights in Turkey in recent years but much remains to be done, according to the speakers at a public hearing held by the European Parliament Women’s Rights and Gender Equality Committee. Constitutional and legislative measures can only achieve so much: society’s attitudes need to change too, MEPs said. The need to protect women against violence and trafficking and to improve their educational opportunities were among the issues highlighted in the introduction to the hearing - titled The role of women in Turkey in Social, Economic and Political life, given by MEP Emine Bozkurt (PES, NL,) the author of reports on women in Turkey in 2005 and 2007. It was not enough to adopt new laws, she said, these laws also need to be implemented.

There are now about 50 women’s shelters in Turkey and another eight in construction but according to the law there should be a shelter in any city of over 50,000 inhabitants. This means there should be at least 231 shelters in Turkey, it was said. Nimet Cubukcu, Turkey’s state Minister of Women’s and Children’s Affairs, said she agreed. She first pointed out that Articles 9 and 10 of the Turkish constitution provided for gender equality.

And although the legislative process could be slow, “A law adopted in 15 minutes can take 15 years before it is implemented and sometimes even 150 years before it becomes part of the cultural reality.” She stressed, “The greatest need is for social and cultural change.” Fortunately, some change in social attitudes could be seen. For example, violence against women was fortunately “now seen as a huge social issue” and was widely discussed in the media. “Women who have been victims of violence often remain silent,” so there must be questions about any official statistics on this matter, according to Yakin Erturk, UN special rapporteur on violence against women.