Nordic or EU model? Universal standards are the only model

As the sixth Turkish–Italian forum, a platform for civil dialog between the two countries, focused on women and multiculturalism, one of the most heated debates during the talks took place following a comment by a member of the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, on women and Islam.

Yaşar Yakış, chairman of Parliament’s EU harmonization commission, a former diplomat and the AKP’s first foreign minister, spoke of the impracticability of using more Italian or Scandinavian models for women’s emancipation.

Yakış infuriated some women present at the forum when he said: “Even if Turkey becomes an EU member one day, a difference will always remain there due to Islamic culture. We will always see that difference in mentality, which is the result of the centuries-old influence of Islam.”

Nilgün Cerrahoğlu, a veteran journalist who spent many years in Italy, has rightly pointed to the fact that the Catholic Church also exerted pressure on women in Italy for centuries, adding that maintaining a secular structure is one of the essential elements in securing equal rights for women.

As to the debate on whether the experience of other countries could be taken as a model, an enlightening answer came from Professor Yakın Ertürk, one of the panelists at the forum.

“The main reference point in our joint efforts to improve women’s rights and emancipation are universal values,” said Ertürk, who, until recently, was the United Nations’ special rapporteur on violence against women.

And we don’t have to look too far on trying to identify universal values. The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), which was adopted in 1979 by the U.N. General Assembly, provides the necessary guidelines, according to Ertürk. “Turkey adopted CEDAW in 1985 and as a state, Turkey’s commitments stems from this document,” she said.

Obviously there are cultural differences, and obviously each country will find its own way forward, but there is nothing wrong with looking at other successful examples, sharing experiences and getting inspired by different models, Ertürk said.

As emphasized by other contributors to the Daily News’ women page, the violence that women are subjected in Western countries who have supposedly progressed on women rights – the killing of a women by a jealous husband for example – is equally as horrifying as the honor killings that takes place in Turkey’s socially and economically underdeveloped east.

To this day, politics in Western countries remains a masculine domain.

In this sense, the joint objective of all who fight for women’s rights should be to weaken male supremacy, according to Ertürk.

Prejudice on both sides

Meanwhile, a survey made public during the forum reported that prejudice against women exists in both Turkey and Italy. We Turks are used to coming across Westerners who are under the mistaken impression that Turkish women have no place in this society and that Turkish men can still marry three women.

According to the survey sponsored by the Italian firm UniCredit, misperceptions on the Turkish side, when they exist, tend to overestimate the degree of emancipation. “Turks think that Italian women have reached a high degree of emancipation and that their current condition is not substantially different from the European average,” according to document distributed during the forum which included a summary of the survey.

Turks believe that “women in Italy already enjoy equal opportunities for promotion and have equal access to politics, a view that is too optimistic to say the least, as available statistics show how the average income level of Italian women is about half that of men and that the number of women in the parliament is about 20 percent,” the booklet said.

But these misperceptions rather belong to the average person, and women’s activists and NGOs in Turkey are well aware of the discrimination that exists all over the world.

That’s why some activists and NGOs get irritated when their European counterparts adopt a superior attitude on the issue.