A success for women’s rights in Turkey

Thanks to consultations conducted with women’s rights groups, women activists appear to be encouraged by the new Turkish Penal Code (TCK), which according to domestic and international women’s rights groups includes more than 30 amendments that constitute steps towards gender equality and protection of the sexual and physical rights of women in Turkey.

Speaking to the Turkish Daily News, TCK Women’s Working Group founding member and lawyer Şenal Sarıhan said important achievements have been made, particularly in the Law on Protection of the Family, which contains provisions for the protection of women from domestic violence, particularly involving the husband. “However, due to value judgments on the part of Parliament, which held protection of the family to be above the protection of women, the law was not enacted under the name of protection of women from violence,” said Sarıhan.

Sarıhan also said the old penal code did not consider crimes violating the integrity of the body as crimes against the individual but rather as being against public morality. “Our working group’s demand to consider crimes involving sexual violence such as rape and sexual harassment as actions against women as individuals was accepted and included in the new penal code,” Sarıhan said.

Sarıhan also criticized Article 122 of the new TDK, which forbids various forms of discrimination, for not criminalizing the discrimination on the basis of sexuality. The article forbids discrimination on the basis of “language, race, color, gender, political thought, philosophical belief, religion, denomination and other reasons.”

Other notable amendments in the penal code pertaining to women’s rights are as follows:

— Patriarchal concepts such as chastity, honor, public morality, public customs, shame or decency are eliminated from the penal code;

— Progressive definitions of sexual offenses are adopted, sexual harassment in the workplace is criminalized, and sentences for sexual crimes are increased,

— Marital rape is criminalized and the notion of “consent of the victim” is removed from consideration of crimes such as rape and the sexual abuse of children; and

— The discrimination between virgin and non-virgin, and married and unmarried women has been abolished.