When she talks about "this organization," she is referring to the Van Women's Association (VAKAD). Emine Boz, a member of VAKAD, says in response to Asiye: "No, be thankful only to yourself, not to us. If you were not putting up your own struggle, we would not be able to do anything for you."
Asiye was one of the first applicants to VAKAD when it was established four years ago by seven women. Previously these founding women had been dealing with the problems of women in Van through individual efforts, but they later decided to establish the association in order to be able to work more effectively. Since the organization's establishment they have reached around 5,000 women through a variety of projects.
One of the founders of VAKAD is Zozan Özgökçe; she was a victim of domestic violence despite her university education. She says that she was not aware of the fact that all of these things were being done to her just because of her gender. After participating in awareness training she was able to identify the discrimination she had experienced. Now she is giving the same training to other women through one of VAKAD's programs.
In this special 16-week program, which aims to develop the consciousness of being female, they are elaborating on issues like the human rights of women, constitutional rights, economic rights, sexuality, gender roles and women's organizations.
When Özgökçe wrote columns in a local newspaper about the problems of women in Van, she says, women in the street would stop her and share their problems. "The women in Van need this organization," she says.
VAKAD has around 40 members, and they also have volunteers. Their organizational structure is different from a regular one: Although, due to legal requirements, they do have a chairwoman and administrative board, in practice they don't have such positions. Anyone who wishes to speak in the name of VAKAD is welcome to and they make decisions by consensus.
Boz is not a founder of VAKAD. Yet she, too, was a victim of violence. She got married when she was 16. Her sister-in-law and mother-in-law were physically violent with her, which is not an unusual scenario in the region. She divorced and found a job, all on her own. When she heard about the establishment of VAKAD, she decided to work for them because she wanted to show her solidarity with women who have experienced situations similar to her own.
According to a survey conducted by VAKAD last year with the financial support of the European Union, Asiye is not alone in getting married at a very early age. Some 33.4 percent of women in the region get married between the ages of 11 and 17, while 69.3 percent of women are not given a choice in the marriage decision. Many are subjected to varying types of abuse with the most common being verbal harassment at 76.9 percent. According to the survey, violence does not only occur in the home, with nearly half of the women reporting that they are exposed to verbal and physical abuse by men in the Van city center. The survey also shows that a great number of illiterate women would prefer to be male if they had a choice. "It is obvious that there is a strong relationship between education level and satisfaction in being a woman, because the ratio of women stating that they would prefer not being a woman decreases in direct proportion to the increase in education level." the survey states.
The problems are not only in Van
All of these results have been recorded in a book published by VAKAD under the title "We have much work to do, because…"
Boz says that these problems of women are not only in Van or in the eastern part of Turkey. "These problems exist in the western regions also; however, there, they are called by a different name -- a crisis of jealousy or a man who gets crazy… But here it is töre (traditional practice)," she says.
Özgökçe underlines that in this region the rules are different for women. "Here, we know when we will be killed and by whom," she says.
Boz points out that every day they get eight or more applications. During a one-hour interview at VAKAD offices, there were three applications -- a 20-year-old woman who wishes to get an education, but is not allowed to by her family; a young divorced woman who was looking for a job; and Asiye. She was able to divorce with the help of VAKAD and she received custody of her five children. However, the youngest two, a 7 and 14-year-old, went to visit their father according to court rules, and their father kept them. Asiye wants her children back and VAKAD is working to make an appointment for her with the security services, which are responsible for getting the children back.
"We don't choose to say we are 'helping' these women. We prefer to say we are providing 'consultation and support'. We ask the women who come to us what they want to do, and when they decide, we try to show them how to reach their objective. If they want to divorce, we send them to a bar association that provides free services for women. If they are being subjected to violence, we help them with the necessary applications and take them to our guest house," Boz says.
Recently the government opened a shelter in Van, but VAKAD has one too. Its address is unknown in order to protect women, but they prefer to call it a guest house instead of a shelter.
"When we take a woman to our guest house, we try to give her all the assistance that she needs and we try to find a job for her or help solve her problem. When she is safe and able to stand on her own two feet, she is then asked to move out of the guest house," Boz says.
Özgökçe adds that the guest house has a capacity of 17, but there are 20 women living there. They are also trying to help women who are seeking asylum. Van, which is a border city, is one of the first places that immigrants from Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan reach.
"We don't discriminate among women; whoever needs us, we will help," says Özgökçe. She mentions that there are also difficulties in taking this approach. For example, according to Özgökçe, the Social Solidarity and Support Fund, an establishment subordinated to the Prime Ministry, doesn't want to help foreign women. VAKAD also needs translators who are able to speak Arabic or Persian. Özgökçe adds that some of the women who apply to them know only Kurdish, but members and volunteers of VAKAD are able to speak it.
Özgökçe was the representative from VAKAD who met with President Abdullah Gül when he convened with nongovernmental organizations in Van, during his first trip within Turkey after being elected president. Özgökçe notes that apart from presenting a file about the problems of women in Van, she also raised the issue of the need for translators. She says when she started to talk about the problems of women with President Gül, almost all the men in the room had a cynical smile on their face.
"Our biggest problem is prejudice," she says, adding: "For example, when the forced 'suicides' of women first began, officials were saying such a thing does not exist in Van. When we put the cases in front of them, they said that this was not common. In 2005 we warned that because of the amendments to the Turkish Penal Code (TCK), which made the punishment for honor killings greater, women would be forced to commit suicide. In the first half of 2006, at least 20 women committed suicide or attempted it," she says.
Özgökçe underlines that some segments of the Kurdish movement are very critical towards them. "We are critical of them too, because they are not talking about discrimination against women and they aren't developing concrete projects either. They say that when the Kurdish problem is solved, the problems of women will be solved also, but this is not the case," she says.
Lack of awareness among officials
She also points out that, at the beginning because of a lack of awareness among officials, the situation was much worse. The police or gendarmerie stations would send women to them who had been subjected to violence, but the same officials were sending the husbands to VAKAD too. "Once they sent a woman to us, there was a huge likelihood that she would be killed by her family. We would take her and call the police station to request that her presence with us be kept confidential. The official on the phone would then proceed to make an announcement in the station very loudly, saying, 'Don't tell anyone that this woman is with VAKAD', and her family would be right there, waiting in the station," Özgökçe remembers.
Boz had a similar experience. "If someone's wife is missing, we are the first address that men come to. Once, an armed man raided the shelter. We opened a court case against him," she says. This court case is not the only one that VAKAD is following. They want a life prison term for a man who killed his seven-month-pregnant wife by setting her on fire.
"The victim knew that she would be killed. It turned out that she had applied to officials with this fear. She was not put under protection; the officials gave her coal (one of the kinds of aid provided to the poor) and sent her away. She was living in a city district. However, for a woman who lives in a rural area it is almost impossible to reach to the correct place. She cannot take the bus alone in many cases, and it is very difficult for her to apply to the gendarme stations. This is why we want special units in the health centers of the villages for women who being abused," Özgökçe says.
But even if a woman is able to get the correct place, getting results can still be difficult. "For example a married woman who was raped by another man is now under protection because she could be killed. She does not know Turkish. It will be very difficult for her to establish a new life," Özgökçe says.
Additionally VAKAD sometimes has financial problems. Keeping the guest house open requires money. The Dutch Embassy is helping them financially, as are the US Embassy and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The organization is also receiving funds from the EU for their projects. One of their income sources is from the women they have helped. Özgökçe says that during Ramadan, in which Muslims financially assist the poor, they also get some donations.
Despite all these problems, there have been positive developments. A member of VAKAD is participating in a training program for the security forces and providing them with more information about domestic violence and other problems of women. Also, under the chairmanship of the public prosecutor, related NGOs and state offices are coming together regularly in order to find ways to help victims of third-party crimes. "Actually, there are mechanisms in place to help women, but the problem is lack of coordination," Özgökçe says.
VAKAD is also working to help women before they become victims. Boz says that they have a project that informs women about their legal rights and the new family laws. They are training 200 women in the first phase of the program with the expectation that each of these 200 women will train at least another 20 women. By the end of 2008, their goal is to reach at least 4,000 women.
"At the beginning men were reluctant to give permission to their wives to attend our training, but later, when they are realized that it could be useful for the family, they started to let them," Boz says, declaring, "Even if it takes hundreds of years, we are determined to improve the situation of women."
VAKAD Web site: www.vakad.org
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