Our time in Istanbul was punctuated by a visit to an NGO working against violence against women, Mor Ҫatı (think “more-cha-tuh”). Its office was not easy to find. Only after ten minutes of wandering around neglected streets amid questioning glances did we stumble across the building, and even then we almost missed the discreet plaque that read “MOR ҪATΙ.”
The woman who welcomed us, Marina, was in fact German, and had moved to Turkey five years ago after her first visit left her desperately in love with the country and its people. As we crammed into a small, simple room and were served water in charmingly mismatched cups, Marina briefed us on feminism and the struggle against violence against women in modern Turkey.
Our professor, Katrin, who was born and raised in Germany, served as a masterful translator, transforming Marina’s impassioned German into English we could all understand. What we learned was disheartening. The modern feminist movement in Turkey was sparked by a 1980s court ruling refusing a woman a divorce from her abusive husband. The presiding judge proclaimed that a woman needs a baby in her belly and stick on her head. The huge demonstrations that swept Istanbul in May 1987 following this announcement marked the beginning of the first homegrown feminist movement not sponsored by the state-led push for secularization.
Its gains have been modest and seem frozen by a crisis of implementation. Sure, a law is on the books granting women the opportunity to receive a six-month restraining order after proven instances of abuse, but it is difficult to gain a conviction and the availability of women’s new addresses online render such an order useless. Requests can be made to conceal an address from the public, but these are typically ignored by judges. More recently, Erdoğan quietly signed into law a measure granting amnesty to perpetrators, and most of the public remains ignorant of this setback.
The status of women’s shelters in Turkey is particularly disconcerting. In a country where four in ten women are estimated to experience violence in their lifetimes, the law requires only one shelter per 100,000 people (the UN’s target is set at one per 10,000). Almost all of these shelters are operated by the national or district governments. Tellingly, the national ministry that operates these shelters, once known as the Ministry of Women, has been rebranded as the Ministry of Family and Social Policy under Erdoğan’s government. That ministry has established a new format for the shelters, referring to them as “guest houses,” confiscating the women’s cell phones, and pushing the women to reconcile with their attackers in the name of keeping the family together. The shelters tend to be located in remote parts of cities and offer counseling and rehabilitation services for the attackers but don’t seem to find room in their budget to provide therapy for survivors. Mor Ҫatı stands alone as the only nongovernment shelter and the only one not adhering to this format.
As much as the struggle against violence against women in the United States is still hampered by an uninformed public and difficult public officials, that discussion seems light years ahead of the one currently taking place in Turkey. The things I took for granted, like the enforcement of laws and reliable rulings from judges, seem like luxuries here. The women fighting this battle every day, from within the recesses of Istanbul’s Beyoğlu neighborhood to the civil war-ridden southeast, will never cease to amaze me.
Lindsay Fountain graduated from Georgetown's Walsh School of Foreign Service in 2015 with a major in international economics and a certificate in religion, ethics, and world affairs. She participated in the Berkley Center's Junior Year Abroad Network while studying at Georgetown's McGhee Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies in Alanya, Turkey. Lindsay was also a research assistant for the World Faiths Development Dialogue.
