Turkish women slow to benefit from Ankara's reforms

VAN, Turkey, Oct 31: Half the women in this eastern Turkish city live with domestic violence and more than two thirds had no say in who they married.

Suphet Dusun, forced at 13 by her Kurdish clan to marry an imam who beat her, would not be surprised by the above statement, the result of a poll carried out by the Van Women's Association among 800 women in the city.

''I suffered constant violence, I was constantly beaten, constantly thrown out of the house,'' she said.

Dusun fled to Istanbul, but her husband followed her and, she says, tried to kill her. She left him in Istanbul, came back to Van with four of her seven children, and now works in a restaurant.

In Turkey's rural, conservative southeast, women are married early to protect their virginity and fathers can receive hefty dowries for their daughters. The forced marriage cycle continues as women are powerless -- socially and economically -- to stop their daughters meeting the same fate.

A woman who gave her name only as Kudret said she lost an eye in a beating from a husband she saw only once before her marriage. Her daughter was wed in the same way.

''I couldn't say anything as (my husband) would hit me ... We don't have the right to speak,'' Kudret told Reuters in Van.

The European Union has said Turkey must do more to combat violence against women as part of its bid to join the bloc.

But activists say there has been little progress on forced marriage, domestic violence and other abuses since an EU report last November. Brussels is due to issue another report, expected to denounce the slow pace of reforms, on November 8.

A new penal code came into effect in mid-2005 which gave women more rights, but many say implementation is lagging.

CHANGING MINDS

Zelal Ozgokce, an activist with the Van Women's Association says police often ignore reports of violence against women and regularly do not act when men breach restraining orders.

She described one such case.

''The policeman said 'this is your wife, take her home tonight,''' she said. ''Some of the police are good, but in general, it's very hard.'' As well as enshrining rights in state law, customs and traditions must also be changed.

The new penal code has scrapped reductions to penalties for rapists if they agree to marry their victims. But some families still force their daughters into such marriages, believing this protects the family name and honour.

Marriage deals are still struck by which a boy and a girl from one family marry counterparts in another, an exchange which avoids dowry costs and protects families' property.

If one marriage fails, the other is also dissolved.

''The mentality isn't changing and that's a very important problem,'' Nebahat Akkoc, founder of the women's support centre KAMER in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir, said.

WESTERN SISTERS

''Honour killings'', where women are murdered by family members who believe they have dishonoured the clan name, continue despite tough, new penalties. In late October, newspapers said a 15-year-old girl was killed days after giving birth to the child of a man who raped her. Several family members were arrested, the reports said.

KAMER's Akkoc says ending such killings is a priority but in a sign of the abyss between Turkey's east and more developed west, activists in Istanbul -- where the head of one of Turkey's largest companies is a woman -- have different goals.

''The whole of Europe is focusing on honour crimes and we keep saying ... honour crimes are the tip of the iceberg,'' said Pinar Ilkkaracan, founder of Women for Women's Human Rights.

''We want quotas (for election candidates) ... Fifty per cent of the population are women and we're asking for only 30 per cent quotas, which is nothing,'' she said.

Women now account for around four per cent of the seats in parliament, about the same as in 1935 shortly after Turkey's reforming founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk gave women the vote.

In Istanbul, activists are also concerned about women's participation in the workforce -- at 27 per cent the lowest among countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

That is linked to a female literacy rate of 80 per cent, compared to 95 per cent for men. Only 72 per cent of girls enrol in secondary school compared to 90 per cent of boys, in part because conservative families worry about girls mixing with boys.

Activists also say there is a lack of information on women's rights and conditions.

''Some African countries have good statistics, better than Turkey,'' Canan Arin, a lawyer and founder of the women's shelter Mor Cati, told Reuters.

''If there was any political will to establish equality, the progress would be much quicker,'' added Arin, who says she was driven to open the shelter after hearing a judge in court use the proverb ''do not leave a woman's back wanting for beatings nor her womb wanting for babies.'' Nimet Cubukcu, state minister with responsibility for women's affairs, has said the government, which has roots in political Islam, is working to raise women's economic and social status.

In July, non governmental organisations and the United Nations welcomed a decree from the ruling AK Party condemning honour killings and domestic violence.

But the message does not seem to have even reached all members of parliament, one of whom told an activist recently that wife-beating was quite normal.

She quoted him as saying: ''My wife is a perfect woman, but I also hit her.''

REUTERS