Fostering women’s access to justice in Türkiye

The action on “Fostering women’s access to justice in Türkiye”, implemented under the European Union and Council of Europe’s joint “Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Turkey 2019-2022”, aimed to strengthen women's access to justice in Türkiye in line with international and European standards.

About the project

The action contributed to enhance accessibility and quality of legal aid and victim support services for women and supporting key stakeholders, including civil society, to facilitate women’s access to justice in Türkiye.

The action contributed to following specific objectives:

Improving the gender responsiveness of legal aid and victim support services to effectively respond to the needs of women.
Enhancing legal aid access for women, including through working with legal aid lawyers and civil society.
Increasing legal literacy and awareness among women, especially groups of women in vulnerable situation.

Results achieved:

Knowledge generated among key stakeholders on barriers for women's access to justice and legal aid and support services in Türkiye and on how to remove them.
Enhanced quality and gender responsiveness of legal aid and judicial support services through capacity building of legal aid and judicial support professionals.
Provision of legal aid and assistance to women in selected communities, including those from vulnerable or disadvantaged groups, by legal aid lawyers trained on gender-sensitive and victim-centred approaches.
Increased awareness and knowledge among women on their legal rights, how to exercise them and on available legal remedies and services, including legal aid and judicial support services.
Increased awareness and understanding among key stakeholders, including judicial and statistical authorities, on measuring women's access to justice and legal aid.

Project activities

The action carried out the following activities:

A research/study on the reality of barriers of women’s access to justice and legal aid in Türkiye with recommendations and ways forward
Providing legal aid to women, particularly to those from disadvantaged groups, by trained legal aid lawyers, in selected provinces
Capacity building programmes for legal aid lawyers and judicial support officers, on women’s access to justice, including training of trainers and online tutored training through Council of Europe HELP Programme (Human Rights Education for Legal Professionals).
Guidelines/checklist for lawyers providing legal aid for women.
Seminar and publication on measuring women’s access to justice and legal aid through a seminar sharing European standards and promising practices
Targeted outreach and awareness raising workshops, seminars, materials, publications and translations.

Project publications and translations

Publications

Research Report on Understanding Barriers to Women’s Access to Justice and Legal Aid in Türkiye - ENG / TUR

Handbook for Legal Aid Lawyers on Women’s Access to Justice in Türkiye - ENG / TUR

Handbook on Strategic Litigation in the Area of Women’s Rights for Legal Practitioners in Türkiye - ENG / TUR

Translations

Gender equality and women’s rights – Council of Europe key standards - ENG / TUR

Guaranteeing equal access of women to justice – ENG / TUR

Equal access to justice in the case-law on violence against women before the European Court of Human Rights - ENG / TUR

Women’s access to justice: a guide for legal practitioners - ENG / TUR

Framework for measuring access to justice including specific challenges facing women - UN Women - Council of Europe - ENG / TUR

Roundtable on "Framework to measure access to justice including specific challenges facing women - ENG / TUR

News

Back Civil society organisations start activities to increase awareness on women’s access to justice in Türkiye

Four civil society organisations (CSOs) kicked off their activities targeting women and legal professionals in Türkiye to increase awareness and legal literacy among women.

Their activities intend to empower women to claim their rights and to develop networks and capacities of legal professions to facilitate women’s and girls’ access to justice. These grants are provided within the framework of the action “Fostering women’s access to justice in Turkey” implemented under the joint European Union and Council of Europe programme "Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Turkey 2019-2022".

Below are some highlights from these activities:

The Foundation for Women’s Solidarity (Kadın Dayanışma Vakfı)

The Foundation for Women’s Solidarity is providing legal assistance to women in order to increase their access to legal aid and available services and continuing to bring together the lawyers to create a platform to share experiences on women’s access to justice.

A total of 20 provinces are targeted (Ankara, Izmir, istanbul, Adana, Urfa, Van, Gaziantep, Düzce, Yalova, Diyarbakır, Corum, Trabzon, Batman, Bursa, Manisa, Hatay, Eskisehir, Rize, Mersin and Samsun). The Women Counselling Centre has provided legal assistance to 230 people through a network of social workers and lawyers. In addition, two online experience-sharing workshops were organised to facilitate exchange among 23 lawyers from bar associations from Ankara, Istanbul, Mersin, Adana, Van, Diyarbakir, Samsun, Mugla and Gaziantep. The workshops focused on the challenges and obtacles faced by women victims/survivors of violence and the role of legal aid to support women’s access to justice.

Flying Broom Foundation (Uçan Süpürge Vakfı)

A 10-weeks online training programme has started to promote women’s and girl’s access to justice with the participation of lawyers, law students and trainee lawyers from various provinces in Türkiye.

The Flying Broom Foundation held two two-day online training on “women’s and girls’ access to justice”. A total of 137 legal professionals, including lawyers from different civil society organisations and bar associations including Ankara Bar, Adana, Samsun, Istanbul, Manisa, Mugla and Hatay, as well as trainee lawyers and law students got acquainted with women’s and girls’ access to justice rights and on available legal aid mechanisms.

In addition to the training programme, the grantee CSO has also started the preparation of a “guide on girls’ access to justice and legal aid mechanisms”. The guide will be available in the Union of Turkish Bar Associations online library, Ankara Bar Association’s website, Ankara University and Women’s Studies Center’s websites.

Soroptimist International of Türkiye (Türkiye Soroptimist Kulupleri İş ve Meslek Kadınları Dernekleri Federasyonu)

A group of 147 women volunteer moderators, co-ordinators and lawyers attended a two-day training of trainers’ session on women’s access to justice and legal aid to launch women’s legal literacy programme in 8 cities across Türkiye.

The purpose of the project is to increase women’s legal literacy in three main themes: women’s human rights and combating gender-based violence; women’s economic and social rights and family law.

Soroptimist International organised two training sessions in Adana with the participation of 44 women with disadvantaged backgrounds. Participating women were informed about human rights, gender equality, civil rights, gender-based violence, divorce and alimony as well as availabe remedies and support services. These training sessions will continue face-to-face in Ankara, Bursa, Denizli, Hatay, Istanbul, Izmir, Mersin and Zonguldak and reach 450 more women.

The Association of Solidarity with Syrian Refugees in Izmir (İzmir'de Suriyeli Mültecilerle Dayanışma Derneği)

This organisation aims at increasing legal literacy and legal awareness of refugee women through technological tools.

The Association conducted a need analysis among refugee women, who are among the vulnerable women group with limited access to information and services. The need analysis unfolds that inadequate knowledge of legal procedures and services, including legal aid, poses a significant barrier for refugee women to exercise their rights. Having this in mind, the Association has embarked on developing capacity building and awareness raising materials and tools, including a mobile application, website, and their content in the languages of target women (Turkish and Arabic), podcasts, videos and a handbook. The online tools will be available soon.

Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Turkey 2019-2022

Council of Europe Programme Office in Ankara

Ankara 22/09/2022