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 Increasing legal aid lawyers’ awareness on women’s access to justice in Turkey

An online kick-off event to launch the tutored online HELP (Human Rights Education for Legal Professionals) course on “Access to Justice for Women” was organised for legal professionals in Turkey on 29 March 2022. 250 legal aid lawyers from four Bar Associations (Ordu, Nevsehir, Diyarbakır and Mugla) participated in the launching event, showing interest and commitment to enhance women’s access to justice and legal aid in Turkey.

In the launch, the participants had the opportunity to learn about the Council of Europe Human Rights Education for Legal Professionals Programme (HELP), its methodology and the specific HELP course on “Access to Justice for Women”, which was recently translated and adopted to legal system of Turkey. They met their tutors who will supervise the delivery of the online course for the following four weeks through the HELP e-learning platform as well as online discussion groups and forums.

Six comprehensive modules of the course, together with its local adaptation package, were introduced to the participants by 8 certified national HELP tutors, expert in gender equality and women’s human rights.

Reflections on the development of the course and its implementation in different countries were shared by Elisabeth Duban, an international consultant. In the topical session, Prof. Gulriz Uygur, national tutor, presented the main barriers for women’s access to justice and legal aid in Turkey and emphasised that “gender discrimination and stereotypes are not about knowledge but about attitudes and biases among legal professionals, an important issue that this HELP course addresses”.

During the event, relevant Council of Europe’s resources on “Guaranteeing Equal Access of Women to Justice” and “Gender Equality and Women’s Rights: Council of Europe standards”, available now in Turkish, were shared with the participants.

As ways forward, the participating lawyers are expected to increase their awareness and understanding about women’s access to justice and eventually contribute to the provision of gender-sensitive legal aid services for women in the selected pilot provinces in Turkey.

The launch was organised within the framework of the action “Fostering women’s access to justice in Turkey” being implemented under the joint European Union and Council of Europe programme “Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Turkey 2019-2022”.

Guaranteeing Equal Access of Women to Justice - TUR