Brussels, 06/09/2005 (Agence Europe) - On 31 August, the Greens/EFA group of the European Parliament invited Turkey's 15 women mayors to debate the role of women, in politics and in social life as a whole. The conference was placed under the chairmanship of Heide Rühle, vice-president of the Greens/EFA group. "We wish to present Turkey in a different light. We know the problems encountered by Turkish women, but we do not see enough of their strength", said Ms Rühle, during the presentation of the objectives of the conference. Turkey is more than just Ankara or Istanbul, it is first and foremost a territory made up of several different regions, with different realities, and the women mayors, of whom there are still very few, are very aware of the work that remains to be done on the ground, at local and regional level, and are able to testify to a reality which is very different from that which their male colleagues, who have an entirely different viewpoint, may report back, the MEP stressed.
The talks allowed the Turkish representatives to relate their very moving personal experiences of the problems they have faced. They called for European solidarity to stand shoulder to shoulder with them in their fight to improve the way of life for all the citizens in their charge, but also to help Turkish society, which is still very chauvinistic and sceptical about the role of women in politics, to evolve. This process is extremely important for the democratisation of the country, but this is the way the country must go if it hopes to be part of the European Union one day, said Songül Erol Abdil, who is the mayor of the town of Tunceli (Tunceli province), and who spoke optimistically: "assemblies have been set up. Work is being done within them to get women and young people involved". The problem continues to reside in the mentality towards the involvement of women in politics in rural areas, where people are particularly cynical, not excepting the female population itself. Women constitute a particularly fragile section of the population, noted Ms Erol Abdil. In more remote regions, the lack of public transport hits women, its main users, particularly hard, to give but one example. Cars are effectively the exclusive domain of men, most of the time. Furthermore, the phenomenon of the exodus of the rural population, mainly in the regions of the South East, helps to impoverish the female population, as women are the worst hit by unemployment and a town planning policy which is modelled on the needs of men. "Many services and policies which should be 'neutral' are actually ill-adapted to the needs of women", said Yildiz Tokman, from the organisation KADER, an NGO which was set up in 1997 to encourage women to get involved in politics, and which has been a member of the European Women's Lobby since 2004. This reality could be corrected if women became more involved in politics at a local level, and then the necessary changes could be brought in. "Equality between the sexes is one of the fundamental values of the European Union (...); however, the rate of participation for women in political power is remarkably low in Turkey. Only 4.46% of its members of Parliament are women and there is only one woman minister", she continued. Locally, the situation is even worse, she stressed: only 0.6% of mayors are women, and they make up just 2.5% of municipal councils. The Habitat II declaration of Istanbul, which was adopted in 1996 and which confers the fundamental obligation on governments to facilitate access by the population to housing, recommends, amongst other things, that the authorities create or reinforce policies and practices in order to promote the full involvement of women in terms of urban and rural planning, Ms Tokman pointed out. "Everybody is in favour, but nobody is moving!", she said. Ahead of the opening of its accession negotiations, Turkey is starting to show some concern with these inequalities. "The [European] Commission recognises the progress Turkey has made, such as bringing in a stricter clause into its criminal code to re-establish more equality between the sexes, and against acts of abuse and violence against women. But there is still be used and there are still problems, because habits are not changing. A change of mindset is needed, answers on paper must follow behaviour!" said Fay Devonic, who is head of the "Gender Equality" unit within DG Employment and Social Affairs. After the talks, the issue of access to European funds was commented upon broadly by the women mayors, who spoke out against the blocking of these funds by the central authorities: the communes experiencing the most difficulty cannot get access to these funds due to their debts, even though they are the ones which need it the most, stressed Heide Rühle, who concluded: "we need greater decentralisation, and this will be raised during the accession negotiations", she said, pledging the support of the European Parliament, working together with the Committee of the Regions.