Karamanou (PSE), draftsperson
of the opinion of the Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities.
– (EL) Mr President, as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Women's
Rights and Equal Opportunities, I should like to comment on the issues which
relate to women's rights in Turkey, to which the Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy has paid too little attention.
Allow me, therefore, to point out that
very little progress has been made with women's rights in Turkey, rights which
we, the Committee, consider to be a sine qua non to the integration of
Turkey into the European Union, because women's rights are human rights.
I understand that the Turkish National
Assembly started a debate today on the reform of the Civil Code, numerous
articles of which infringe the United Nations convention on abolishing all
forms of discrimination against women, despite Turkey's having ratified the convention.
I trust parliament will pass this bill, as adopted by the Committee on
Citizens’ Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs in June.
However, the crucial question which arises
is whether the law will also apply to existing families because, unfortunately,
the Justice Committee submitted an amendment exempting existing families at the
last minute. It is quite unacceptable to introduce changes to the Civil Code
that only apply to future generations and I know that women's organisations in
Turkey have expressed their total opposition to this.
The national programme for integration
into the European Union talks of revising the constitution so as to guarantee
sexual equality; however, there are no plans, whatsoever, to adopt positive
measures which, as the women's organisations have pointed out, would allow all
the laws which institutionalise discrimination against women to be amended.
As far as women's right to work is
concerned, I should like to highlight both the high rate of unemployment among
women – 39.6% and even higher in agricultural areas – and the limited number of
women who benefit from national insurance.
I should like to call on Turkey to abolish
all forms of discrimination against women and I should, of course, like to call
on Europe to provide the economic and technical assistance needed to put this
into practice.