On February 26-27, the Purple Roof Women’s Shelter Foundation (Mor Çatı Kadın Sığınağı Vakfı) organized an international conference entitled “The Politics of Women’s Shelters, Solidarity Centers and Solidarity Against Male Violence Throughout the 2010s: Sharing Experiences from Turkey and Europe” at the Kadir Has University. Forty women from eleven countries and two hundred people from LGBTI organizations participated in this conference.
Organized with the financial support of the Delegation of the European Union to Turkey, the Heinrich Böll Stiftung Turkey Office (HBSD), and the Technical Assistance for Civil Society Organizations (TACSO), this conference opened up a space for sharing experiences between women’s organizations struggling in the field of violence against women in Germany, Austria, Sweeden, Poland, Hungary, England, Bulgaria, Holland, Spain and Turkey.
Support mechanisms necessary for lives away from violence
In the first panel titled “The increasing importance of solidarity and intervention centers: Models from Europe and Turkey,” Tamar Çıtak talked about the work carried out by the Vienna Intervention Center Against Intrafamilial Violence. And Neşe Hacısalihoğlu described the Hürriyet Hotline model whereby women subjected to violence can have 7/24 access to psychological, legal and social support.
In the second panel titled “In the light of fifty years of history of women’s shelters, thinking together the shelter experiences in Turkey and in Europe,” Britta Schlichting from the Germany Independent Women’s Shelters Information Center reported the fundamental principles and daily functioning in the shelters they run on the basis of the maxim of “support from women to women.” And departing from her etnographic work on the municipal shelters in Turkey, Berna Ekal put forward that the support provided in public shelters is not rights-based, but one within a framework where the state and citizens are situated in a paternalist relationship. She also stated that while demanding a shelter from municipalities and the state, feminists should take into consideration the characteristics of the power imposed by these shelters on the women in question.
The challenges felt by women while trying to build lives away from violence and the kind of support they require were taken up in the experience sharing section in the context of England and Turkey.
In the third panel titled “Rebuilding Lives away From Violence: Challenges & Supportive Mechanisms,” Hilary Abrahams referenced her research about the shelters in England, the emotional and material losses caused by violence in women’s lives and the kinds of support they require in order to overcome such violent experiences. In order to establish a new life, women first need a safe and suitable place to stay, short and long-term emotional support, and forming close relationships that can provide them with support.
Feride Güneri, a psychologist from the Purple Roof Women’s Shelters Foundations, talked about the ways how men practicing violence render violence sustainable and what women can do in order to overcome violent experiences. Burcu Yakut Çakar, on the other hand, stated that in Turkey there is no welfare system that would enable women to be empowered in economic terms. Çakar pointed out that women in Turkey predominantly perform domestic labour and care and that their savings and assets are not equivalent to those of men. Furthermore, the current welfare regime that gives primacy to the family and that defines women as being “dependent on men” is not a welfare network that can enable women to build a life away from violence, but is rather a kind of welfare clamp.
Models of struggle and international legal framework
On the second day of the conference, the issues discussed were models of struggle against violence towards women, international legal policies, and women organizations’ experiences with respect to local and international networks.
In the fourth panel, titled “Mechanisms Supporting Shelters and Solidarity Centera: Other Means for Combating Violence against Women”, Carol Hagemann-White made a speech evaluating the mechanisms in the struggle against violence towards women, emphasizing the success of models of some independent women organizations. Zozan İnci, from the Sweden National Women’s Shelters Organization (ROKS), asserted that in contradistinction to the predominat view, violence against women is also a common problem in Sweeden. According to the figures provided by the Swedish National Crime Prevention Council, a women is subjected to violence in Sweeden in every twenty minutes, one hundred women are subjected to rape every day, and only twenty-three percent of these rape cases can be documented.
Speakers from EŞİTİZ (The Women’s Group Monitoring Equality) and the Purple Roof Foundation dwelled upon the mechanisms of struggle against violence towards women in Turkey. Açelya Uçan and Perihan Meşeli, both from the Purple Roof, stated that laws are only written on paper, with the reality being that women subjected to violence encounter mistreatment upon applying to relevant institutions, and that such mistreatment causes them to avoid these institutions.
Hülya Gülbahar from EŞİTİZ highlighted the need for a specific budget for struggling against violence towards women in Turkey. In addition, she said that women still have a high confidence in women’s organizations, despite the government’s repression of women and its continual efforts to marginalize the women movement.
In the fifth panel, titled “International Law and Women’s Politics on Law – İstanbul Convention and CEDAW”, Albena Koycheva, from the Bulgaria Gender Studies Foundation, talked about the work carried out with the purpose of harmonizing domestic legislation with international conventions and the effects of amendments on current practices. She expressed that legal implementations must be regularly monitored and that one must also take into consideration the fact the people exerting violence always test the limits of the law. Emphasizing that the İstanbul Convention is a binding contract, Koycheva reminded the obligation of states to be attentive in implementing this convention.
On the other hand, Biljana Branković, from the Group of Experts on Action against Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (GREVIO) stated that the İstanbul Convention is a tool of struggle that can used by the feminist movement all over the world. Enikő Pap from Hungaria stressed that states must not only recognize women’s organizations in the struggle against violence, but also encourage and support them. And Karolina Wieckiewicz took up the issue of international obligations with regard to reproductive rights and violence against women with illustrations from Poland. She said that the prohibition of abortion in Poland leads to unregistered abortions, thus posing a threat to women’s lives.
In the last panel titled “Establishing Efficient Networks, Empowering Each Other and Our Prospects for an International Feminist Struggle against Violence against Women,” the topic of discussion was the potential ways of establishing and operationalizing international feminist networks in the struggle against violence towards women. This panel’s focus was the work carried out by the WAVE (Women Against Violence Europe) network, of which the Purple Roof is one component. Regulary drawing up reports on states, WAVE provides an important basis for observing the circumstance in various countries and for acting together.
Dwelling upon the organization process of the World Shelters Conference, Riejke Kok emphasized the need for strong regional networks in the struggle against violence. And Sandra Moreno Cadena from the La Via Campesina International Farmers Movement pointed out that women make up approximately 80% of the agricultural labour force throughout the world, but they possess only 2% of agricultural lands. She asserted that defending the rights of women in rural Europe corresponds to women’s defense of their own bodies and lands. Cadena also talked about the organizational experiences of the women in La Via Campesina by way of interacting with other feminist networks.
With references to cases in Europe and Turkey, this two-day long conference revealed the prevalence of violence against women, the importance of the existence of independent women’s organizations and cross-institutional coordination in the struggle against this violence.
One of the significant conclusions arrived at through specific national experiences was the need for a model in which relevant institutions can work in tandem with each other and independent women’s organizations can also get involved, a model which would primarily prioritize establishing solidarity centers for providing support to women subjected to violence, shelters, and hotlines.