“Life after the earthquake has been really hard, but coming to a game even for just an hour gives me a breather – it’s empowering” says Sakine Özelci. Like thousands of others, Özelci has been living in a container home – with her family of four – since the earthquakes that struck southern Turkey in February 2023. Football is one of the things that has kept her going. Özelci’s team is called the Gökyüzü Şutlayıcıları (“Sky Shooters”). It was established …

In a courtyard in Hatay, southern Turkey, a group of women are dressed in their best clothes as they get ready for their first concert, after months of practice. They look over the lyrics one last time, the seating chart is finalised and the instruments are tuned. Then, the music starts. “When we were young,” the conductor Abir Naeseh Bilgin starts singing, as the choir joins in, “how we used to stroll hand in hand on the streets…” Abir Naaseh …

Recent statements by Turkey’s state-backed Islamic authority, the Presidency of Religious Affairs (Diyanet), have inflamed long-running debates about women’s rights and the role of religion in public life. The Diyanet’s Friday sermons, delivered simultaneously in nearly 90,000 mosques each week, function as a religious guide for millions in Turkey. Yet recent sermons have carried messages that appear to align with the government’s stance on a range of social issues, from women’s clothing and personal freedom, to inheritance rights and LGBT+ …

Nearly three decades after global pledges for gender equality in the media, women remain severely underrepresented in news content. According to the latest Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) – the world’s longest-running study on gender in the news – in 2025, women accounted for only 26% of all news subjects and sources worldwide. Although this is a gradual improvement from 2005, when the figure stood at 14%, it still reflects persistent structural imbalance. While GMMP’s 2025 findings also reveal that …

“As a woman, you are always out of place,” says psychologist Ece Önder, reflecting on the pressures of her job. Although women therapists form the backbone of Turkey’s mental health services, they still face obstacles on account of their gender. Önder, who specialises in trauma and disasters, tells Inside Turkey that women are deemed “inexperienced” when they’re young, “strict” when they are older, “soft” when they are compassionate, and “cold” when they are detached. Berçem Göktürk, a clinical psychologist, shares …

“Being a stay-at-home youth makes me feel like I’m not self-sufficient, like I’m dependent on my family,” says 24-year-old Atlas Ay in a cafe in İstanbul’s bustling Beşiktaş district. Staring at a cup of tea in front of him, shoulders hunched over, his voice trembles when he speaks. “It makes me depressed and angry, first at myself and then at the circumstances of the country where I live.” Ay is a university graduate – but, he says, that’s no longer …

“You can’t have breakfast without braided cheese. I feel like I haven’t eaten if it isn’t on the table,” says 58-year-old Nermin Akay as cheese is weighed out in a shop in the historic bazaar of Turkey’s south-eastern Diyarbakır province. A couple of shops down, 60-year-old Sinan Kutlu examines a slab of braided cheese he is holding. “Karacadağ Mountain milk is just different,” he says. “It tastes like my childhood.” Diyarbakır’s famous braided cheese. Credit: Gülistan Korban A vendor of …

“The only thing we care about is finding cleaner, more affordable food for our families,” says Yaşar Kaygısız, a retired teacher in Istanbul. Her words sum up what autumn means to many people in Turkey: the season of food prep. As food prices soar each winter, autumn becomes the busiest time of the year in Turkish kitchens. Many households turn to age-old methods for preserving food: making tomato paste, pickles, dried vegetables and jams. People stock up before prices rise …

It’s 5 a.m. With the sun still down, it still feels cool outside. At this quiet hour when most people are still asleep, Gülçin grabs a cardigan and heads over to the tandır house. She takes the key out from her pocket, unlocks the door, turns on the light and gets to work, placing wood and cow dung underneath the oven and lighting a fire. Tandır – or tandoor – bread, cooked in the large enclosed ovens found across the …

It’s a new school year in Turkey, but for thousands of children that means going to lessons hungry. With around 29.3% of Turkey’s population at risk of poverty – and free school meals still not an option for most children, despite having been debated by politicians for years – malnutrition is a pressing issue. “My daughter has lost so much weight in the last two years because of malnutrition,” one mother, who asked not to be named, tells Inside Turkey …