In a dimly lit hookah and coffee house in southern Turkey’s Hatay province, a middle-aged woman sits with her head bowed. Her eyes tear up before she even begins to speak. The scars of the devastating earthquake that struck Hatay in early 2023 are still visible – not only in the collapsed buildings, but in the lives of women like Selma*, who are facing an epidemic of violence amid the chaos. “We were always cautious around him,” Selma says of …

A government campaign to encourage women to give birth via vaginal delivery has drawn criticism on the grounds that it stigmatises mothers who choose caesareans. In October 2024, Turkey’s Ministry of Health launched a “Normal Birth Action Plan” to encourage women to give birth via vaginal delivery. The campaign, announced in a public service ad titled “Mum, we did it”, prompted a backlash on social media. The Turkish Psychiatric Association also criticised the public service ad for being unscientific and …

Amid a difficult environment for media in Turkey, with both economic challenges and political repression, journalists are often forced to move abroad to continue their work. Fellowship programmes and grants, which offer resources such as professional training, funds to cover relocation and living costs, or psychological and legal support, can be a vital lifeline. But do these initiatives come with their own limitations too – particularly for women? “I find that the most crucial issue is that the visa provided …

Since late summer, the abduction and murder of Narin Güran, an eight-year-old girl from Diyarbakır in south-eastern Turkey, has captured public attention. Güran’s body was discovered in a stream near her home village of Tavşantepe on 8 September, 19 days after her family initially reported her missing and a lengthy police search. The case took a further twist, however, when Güran’s uncle, mother and brother – and a neighbour – were among the suspects arrested in connection with her death …

Nevşin Mengü, one of Turkey’s few powerful female journalists, has been broadcasting on social media for some time now after a long career in mainstream media. Moreover, Mengü, who seems to have broken free from the oppressive cycle of ratings-bosses-power, is making a success of it: she is among the most-watched journalists in Turkey. Mengü’s experience of social media, however, shows that success doesn’t nt her an escape from sexism in journalism, or in society at large. Being a woman …

Women’s rights campaigners warn there’s no cause for complacency over the AKP’s parliamentary allies Gonca Kuriş, abducted and murdered in 1998, lies in the same cemetery in the southern coastal province of Mersin as two other symbols of women’s rights in Turkey. Also buried there are singer Bergen, murdered by her husband in 1989, and Özgecan Aslan, killed in 2015 while resisting a bus driver’s attempt to sexually assault her. Kuriş, a 38-year-old women’s rights campaigner, was tortured and killed …

Women journalists working in the Turkish media face multiple challenges, including prejudice, exclusion and harassment. İdil Engindeniz, vice dean of Galatasaray University’s faculty of communication, explains how representation, solidarity and support – and workplace organisation – are key to addressing sexist attitudes and discrimination. How can women journalists best struggle against sexist attitudes and discrimination in the workplace? Journalists are not independent of society. Women face various forms of discrimination in work and social life, and we have developed coping …

I had a huge house and I had guests all the time, we never had any financial concerns,” says human rights activist and doctor Hameeda Sharifi about her former home in Afghanistan. “Now, there’s nobody around, and we have to think twice before buying anything.” After decades of fighting for women’s rights, Sharifi was forced to flee Afghanistan, with her husband and their two children, due to threats from the Taliban. She arrived in Turkey, via Iran, in 2018. But …

Eda Kaboğlu, a 15 year-old from Turkey’s southern Hatay province, didn’t lose any of her immediate family in the earthquakes that hit parts of Turkey and Syria in February. But many of her friends were killed, including a close friend she was due to meet just a day after the first quake hit. In order to get over the losses – or at least to forget them for a while – Kaboğlu threw herself into kickboxing, a sport she’s been …

With the deaths of 18 family members and dozens of friends, Nesrin Burç Deli felt defeated by the February earthquakes that devastated parts of Turkey and Syria. The collapse of her clothing store, the source of her livelihood for over two decades, dimmed in comparison to the loss of her loved ones. “We lost on all fronts. We lost people, goods, our lives, our city,” says Burç Deli, who lives in Antakya, in southern Turkey’s Hatay province. Yet just four …