By IPS Correspondents
ISTANBUL, Jan 14 2000 (IPS)

The new draft legislation, introduced in December, to provide equality in Turkey, has been suspended following opposition by conservative legislators.

The draft, moved by Justice Minister Himet Sami Turk, envisages affirmative action in the Turkish Civil Law pertaining to the rights of women.

According to the draft, references to woman as “wife” in the Civil Law texts will be replaced as “woman”, and references to “husband” as “the head of the household” will be eliminated. Children from “extra-marital relationships” will be granted “equal rights” and women will have free access to occupation without the consent of their husbands, or male relatives.

Turk and his coalition allies in government are at loggerheads over the draft. Enraged members of the Nationalist Action Party (MHP), which has its support base in Turkey’s conservative central regions, staunchly oppose women’s equal participation in familial wealth.

They fear that women’s increased economic freedom will encourage divorce, and lead to the collapse of Turkey’s traditional male-dominated family structure.

“This new regime will transform marriage from a spiritual union to a material union,” MHP leader Devlet Bahceli warns. “If the amendment is legislated we will see handsome boys and girls marry older and wealthier partners in order to inherit or acquire the latter’s material wealth.”

Bahceli’s argument has sparked angry reactions from feminists. “It is apparent that Bahceli is an enemy of women”, says Ayse Duzkan, a leading Turkish feminist.

Describing the draft legislation as limited in scope, Duzkan says the law will be impossible to implement.

The draft has, however, been welcomed by Canan Arin, a lawyer in Istanbul, who says “the raising of marriage age for girls from the present 15 to 18 is a positive change.”

She calls for an effective mechanism to be put in place to check the implementation of the law once passed by parliament. She says the law should come down hard on “families who let 12-year- old daughters marry for dowry.”

But she also warns that, if the draft is passed into law and if rights groups drop their guard, “a sexist and narrow-minded judge may turn everything upside down.”

Arin is optimistic that the amendments will be legislated one day. “When I was a law student 30 years ago, our professors were retained as advisors for parliamentary commissions in Ankara. They were discussing the same issues that we are discussing now,” she recalls.

“This time, the European Union (EU) membership (which Turkey is seeking) may force the legislators to amend the laws, but you can not bring out a change simply relying on external pressure,” she says.

Duygu Asena, a respected columnist with the daily Milliyet, points out that the male-dominated legislation process itself is a major road block on women’s liberation.

“What makes me crazy is that those politicians who occupy almost all the seats in the parliament are least concerned with the ongoing oppression of women,” says Asena. “Most of them still believe that man is the head of the family.”

Only 24 out of 550 deputies (4.3 percent) in the present parliament are women, while no woman occupies a ministerial post. The number of women legislators has grown twofold in five years, losing two ministerial posts they held in the previous cabinet.

“If the deputies vote for the amendments,” Asena says, “it is not that because they have changed their minds but because they believe that Europe wants them to do so.”

“If they are really determined to bring about changes, then they should launch training programmes. Turkey’s profound reality is not what we see in Ankara or Istanbul. Across the country, women are still an object of purchase…bought or sold in three or five at a time,” she says, referring to dowry.

A cleaner in Istanbul, well informed about the ongoing debate, doubts whether Turkey’s age-old male-dominated traditions would change with legislations.

“One of my patrons had given me a bottle of perfume as a gift after a hard day’s work. But my husband would not believe that I was awarded. Believing that I had bought the perfume without his consent he beat me up,” recalls the 25-year-old cleaner, Sabiha Kaleli.

“If the law is amended,” she wonders whether her husband will stop beating her “for the same reason.”

“I bet he will not, but I would like it changed, may be someday, my daughter and I may benefit from it,” she says.

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