Gender Quotas In Turkey

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The campaign towards promotion of the gender quotas began in the 1990s. The pressure for the government and the political parties to establish the quotas to promote the participation of the women in the politics increased especially from the civil societies and the NGOs that support the women welfare. Crucially, the Association for Education and Supporting Women Candidates (KA-DER) greatly lobbied for the political parties to establish the gender quotas. The organizations have also prepared reports and presented in the parliament to establish the significance of the matter. Moreover, the NGOs has also organized panels that would question and pressurize leaders on the significance of increasing the number of the women in the politics (Mencütek, …show more content…

The pro-Kurdish parties had the ability to implement the use of the quotas in their parties successfully. The quotas in those parties have benefited the women through the applications in the different places in Turkey. One of the significant parties that have implemented the application of the 20% quotas is the People’s Democracy Party (HADEP). The party introduced the quota during the elections of the year 1999. The women in the Kurdish parties began the revolution for the adoption of the quotas in the 1990s. They wanted the empowerment of the women and the increase of the representatives of the women in the party (Mencütek, 2013). The parties had faced difficulties in adoption of the quotas. Ayse Gokkan, a woman in the HADEP, had noted that the women increase in the party had been objected by the men who were in the party. They always felt bad or objected when the women were put in the top positions in the party or the candidate’s lists. In the elections of 1999, HADEP never secured any seat in the parliament. The men felt objected, and they felt the reason for the failures was a result of the huge selection of the women in the party. The party had only the capability to secure the huge number of the votes from the Kurdish population. As the pressures for the increased representation of the women increased, other activists in the party such as the Abdullah Öcalan, joined hands to fight for the establishment of the quotas in the party. HADEP agreed for the adoption of the 25% quota in the annual convention of the year 2000, and the agreement was put in the statutes of the party. The quota was increased to 40% during the general elections of the year 2005 (Mencütek,

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