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.

• 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

 The Union of Bar Associations of Türkiye

 The Ministry of Justice

 European Union and the Council of Europe

1 October 2021 - 31 December 2022

The project was implemented by

 the Capacity Building and Co-operation Projects Unit at the Council of Europe’s Gender Equality Division

 Marta BECERRA, Head of Unit

 Senem GUROL, Project Manager

together with

 the Council of Europe Office in Ankara

 Volkan DELI, Senior Project Officer

 Nilsu Cagla KAYA, Project Officer

 Mert YUREKLITURK, Project Assistant