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Others/Law.
Leslye Amede ObioraTurkeyThe founding of the Turkish Republic in 1923
brought an end to the Ottoman Empire’s system of
parallel laws, which were applied depending on a
citizen’s religion, gender, community, and occupa-
tional status or sect, and established a single, secu-
lar, and standardized judicial system based the
European system of law. The Turkish Civil Code of
1926, adapted from the Swiss Civil Code, abol-
ished polygyny and granted women equal rights in
matters of divorce, child custody, and inheritance.
The Turkish Penal Code, also adopted in 1926, is
based on the Italian Criminal Code.
An extensive reform of the Turkish Civil Code
was accomplished in November 2001. The new
Civil Code, which came into effect on 1 January
2002, abolished the supremacy of men in marriage
and thus established the full equality of men and
women in the family. It also set the equal division of
property acquired during marriage as the default
property regime, raised the legal minimum age of
marriage to 18 for both men and women (previ-
ously 17 for men and 15 for women), gave children
born out of wedlock the same inheritance rights as
those born inside a marriage, and allowed single
parents to adopt children. Another recent (October
2001) step toward gender equality in the Turkish
legal system is the amendment of Article 41 of the
constitution, redefining the family as an entity
“based on equality between spouses” (WWHR –
New Ways 2002).
However, it is evident that legal reforms alone are
turkey 383not sufficient to prevent gender discrimination and
women’s rights violations. The majority of women
in Turkey are unaware of their legal rights and have
very little access to pertinent information. Many
women have little or no income and, until very
recently, free or inexpensive legal counseling serv-
ices for women were non-existent in Turkey. In the
last decade, women lawyers have established some
legal counseling services under the auspices of bar
associations in the larger cities, but their number
and capacity are very limited. A human rights
education program, implemented by Women for
Women’s Human Rights (WWHR) – New Ways
since 1998 in 30 community centers throughout the
country in cooperation with the directorate for
social services, aims to provide ongoing training
sessions where women not only learn what their
rights are, but are also given the skills and support
that allow them to actively achieve those rights. An
evaluation of the program shows that only 11 per-
cent of those who participated had some knowl-
edge of their legal rights prior to the training. The
majority indicated that the knowledge and compe-
tencies acquired through the training have helped
them achieve greater gender equality in both the
home and the community (Kardam 2003).
In addition to lack of knowledge, education, eco-
nomic means, and state resources for legal coun-
seling, other factors limiting women’s access to the
legal system include the prevalence of customary
and religious practices, language barriers for women
belonging to non-Turkish ethnic groups living in
Turkey, and oppression within the family prevent-
ing women from seeking their legal rights.
The lives of the majority of women living in
Turkey continue to be shaped by a multiplicity of
traditional practices that violate existing laws,
including early and forced marriage, polygamous
marriage, “honor” crimes, virginity testing, and
restrictions on women’s mobility. Research con-
ducted with 599 women living in the eastern and
southeastern regions of Turkey shows that 16.3
percent of women in the region were married ear-
lier than the minimum legal age of 15 (raised to 18
in 2002). More than half of the women (51 percent)
were married without their consent although con-
sent of both parties is a precondition for marriage
under Turkish law. One in ten women live in polyg-
ynous marriages, although polygamy was banned
under the Civil Code in 1926 (Ilkkaracan and
WWHR 1998).
Research findings also show that it is not uncom-
mon for uncodified customary or religious laws to
be applied in matters related to marriage, despite