2013 Press Statement
Let Our Bodies, Our Lives, Our Decisions Be Ours!
Keep your family for yourselves!
As women from Turkey, over the past year we have resisted and struggled against government policies that, through the perspectives “The family comes before women” and “Women are for the family,” seek to increase pressure on women in order to protect and strengthen the family, and to make women dependent on the home, family and their husbands.
Slogan: We are women, not the family; we are in feminist revolt.
Through its imposition of “motherhood,” “honor,” “acceptable wives,” “three to five children,” and practices that keep women at home, the AKP government sees our women’s bodies as machines for population growth. By trying to ban abortion, the AKP places obstacles in the way of abortion and pursues policies that exert pressure and domination over our bodies and narrow our living spaces.
Slogan: AKP, take your hands off my body!
Abortion is a right, the decision belongs to women!
Male violence surrounds women’s lives at home, in the street and everywhere. The state, which recognizes women only within the family, offers its social policy only through the family and as a favor! Women subjected to violence cannot access their rights; the fear they experience in courts, governors’ offices, shelters and state institutions forces them to return to the violent environment.
Slogan: Support women, not the family!
The state tries to condemn women to heterosexual families; it denies sexual orientation and gender identity and the existence of lesbian and trans women. Trans women are excluded from society and forced into sex work. Trans people are killed, and their killers receive sentence reductions for unjust provocation.
Slogan: The murder of trans people is political!
Slogan: Do not be silent, shout: lesbians exist!
In Turkey, three women are killed by men every day, one in three women is beaten and one in five women is raped. In this country where violence is widespread and women are unsafe, there are only 103 shelters. The state, which can make every kind of mathematical calculation about population growth, forgets arithmetic when the number of shelters is mentioned! Life in existing shelters is structured to send women back to their families, to the environment of violence.
The government, continuing its sexist language through the name “Cocoon,” has put Violence Prevention Centers into operation, keeping women and men under the same roof. These institutions, established for reconciliation between women and men and for family counseling, serve men, not women, when they mediate between women subjected to violence and men who perpetrate it. We object to this practice fundamentally.
Slogan: Prevent murder, not divorce.
Law No. 6284 was enacted with the claim of preventing violence against women, without evaluating women’s organizations’ objections. This law has been in force for a year, but its implementation is left to the will of the individuals and authorities women approach. Women’s right to life is left to the discretion of police officers, judges, prosecutors, governors and district governors. Nonstandard practices frighten women in judicial proceedings too. Decisions are made not to support women but through a sexist mentality. The law serves men, not women! From the word “Family” given to the name of Law No. 6284 to its organizational form, the Ministry works in every sphere to perpetuate male domination. Yet you cannot stand against male violence by strengthening the family. If you side with the family, you do not side with women!
Slogan: You said family and family; you made our lives a prison!
As women, throughout our lives we see the state search for pretexts to legitimize violence against women by invoking consent in rape and unjust provocation in femicide. This year, in the case of Nevin and many other women, we saw women isolated before the male-dominated judiciary; to protect themselves and resist male violence, they are forced to secure their own justice. Women exercise their right to self-defense!
Slogan: Real justice, not male-dominated justice!
As women living in Turkey, we have said many times how much the environment of war and conflict, state militarism and violence that has continued for thirty years affects all women. Over the past year, pressure has increased especially on Kurdish women through the state’s nationalist-sexist policies. Women have been and are being arrested for attending the March 8 Rally, teaching, thinking, expressing their thoughts and simply being Kurdish. We demand an end to arrests and the release of those in prison. Turkey has for some time witnessed a new negotiation process. In this process, as women who know the consequences of war and conflict and who struggle, we take a side: we say “Peace, right now!”
Slogan: We insist on peace!
The intervention against İŞTAR, the women’s counseling center that works as a shelter, the arrests of women from İŞTAR, and the closure case against the feminist women’s organization VAKAD clearly demonstrate the state’s attempts to obstruct Kurdish women’s organized struggle. As feminists, we will stand alongside both İŞTAR and VAKAD.
Slogan: Woman, life, freedom!
Slogan: Long live women’s solidarity!
Women who went to the Directorate of Family and Social Policies on March 4, condemned the AKP’s sexist policies and raised a banner in the building were subjected to police violence and torture while Fatma Şahin was inside condemning male violence. The state’s male-dominated violence cannot frighten us!
Slogan: Let the father come, let the husband come, let the state come, let the baton come,
Revolt again, revolt again, freedom again!
Today is March 8! Women’s Day of Struggle and Solidarity!
We women reject the idea that today’s family order, which gives us labor slavery, lifelong caregiving, violence and oppression, is the only legitimate and desirable way of life! If your sacred family means women being killed every day, a sentence of marriage, bearing children for the state, we revolt against this imposition! We continue our struggle against capitalism and patriarchy, against men and male power, through our actions, revolt, resistance and women’s solidarity.
Istanbul Feminist Collective/March 8, 2013
Slogan: Long live March 8! Long live our organized struggle!