MAPPING THE VARIETIES OF PERSPECTIVES ON CIVIC AND POLITICAL PARTICIPATION OF YOUTH, WOMEN AND MINORITIES/IMMIGRANTS IN TURKEY

Çok F.; Bozkurt Ş.; Şener T.

Paper presented at the Surrey PIDOP Conference on “Political and Civic Participation”, April 16th-17th, 2012, University of Surrey,

Guildford, UK

GENERAL FRAMEWORK AND OVERVİEW The aim of this paper is to map discourses on

civic and political participation in Turkey in relation to women, youth and minority/immigrant groups.

Dominant paradigms embodied in the perspectives of public authorities and NGOs, and the counter arguments and recent public agenda/media coverage are tried to be underlined.

GENERAL FRAMEWORK AND OVERVİEW This analysis is based on an examination of the policy

documents/reports produced between 2004 and 2011 by the public institutions and NGOs working in the fields of youth, women and minorities/migrants in Turkey. In total 34 documents were reviewed, the distributions are shown in Table.1, are incorporated in the study.

Distribution of Reviewed Documents by Target Groups

  youthwomen

migrant/minority Total

Public 6 8 3 17

NGO 6 7 4 17

Total 12 15 7 34

REPRESENTATİON OF WOMEN İSSUES İN THE DOCUMENTS

Main Focus of Documents (Governmental) Protection of the family unity, social

solidarity, struggle against poverty and social exclusion

Human rights, gender equality Prevention of domestic violence Prevention of honour killings

AGENDA OF PUBLİC İNSTİTUTİONS AND MEDİA ON WOMEN

Legal improvements in juridical procedures in favour of victim women.

Public institutions concern with women mainly if they are victims.

Restricted participation of women in the parliament and the government (higher representation of women in the main opponent party, new %30 quota? in implementation, there are problems.)

Existence of a few influential women parliamentarians recently in the parliament

More media coverage of victim women (domestic violence, women murders, sexual harressment/abuse)

More media coverage of successful women (successes of key women figures)

AGENDA OF CİVİL SOCİETY ORGANİSATİONS/NGOS ON WOMEN

Increase in number and representation in the public NGOs have contributed to the politicization of

formerly domestic/private issues such as sexual harressment and violence againt women

NGOs have been increasingly interested in women’s conventional forms of participation (such as their more representation in the parliament, encouragement for voting)

NGOs have increasingly stressed the prevention of discrimination against women in the educational and economic spheres

REPRESENTATİON OF YOUTH İSSUES İN THE DOCUMENTS

Huge population and youth population (about 11-12

million)

YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT

Youth unemployment rate (%)

1985 1990 1995 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

Greece 24,2 23,3 27,9 29,5 28 26,8 26,8 26,9 26 25,2 23 22,1 25,8 32,9

Italy 33,9 31,5 31,9 29,7 27 26,3 26,3 23,5 24 21,6 20,3 21,3 25,4 27,8

Portugal

19 9,6 15,7 8,6 9,4 11,6 14,5 15,3 16,1 16,2 16,6 16,5 20 27,7

Spain 43,8 30,2 40,4 25,3 20,8 22,2 22,7 22 19,7 17,9 18,2 24,6 37,9 41,6

Turkey ... 16 15,6 13,1 16,2 19,2 20,5 20,6 19,9 19,1 20 20,5 25,3 19,7

EU15 ... ... 20,3 14,9 14,3 14,8 15,5 16,2 16,9 16,2 15,2 15,7 19,9 20,4

EU27 ... ... ... 17,4 17,4 18,1 18,3 18,7 18,9 17,5 15,7 15,8 20,1 21,1

Huge Youth Unemployment (app. %20-25)

YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT AND RELATED PROBLEMS

Young women and unemployment Unregistered/informal employment and

lack of social security Mismatch of training and work life Compulsory military service

REPRESENTATİON OF YOUTH İSSUES İN THE GOVERNMENTAL DOCUMENTS

Lack of a comprehensive youth policy despite the existence of huge youth

population and the presense of a Ministry for Sports and Youth

Lack of a policy concerning youth participation

Lack of policies/priorities/practices concerning different youth categories such as ethnic and cultural groups, sexual orientation and disabled youth

AGENDA OF PUBLİC İNSTİTUTİONS ON YOUTH

Discourses on youth which tend to polarise them in relation to their religious identities

Prime Minister’s declaration of government’s aim to raise a ‘conservative/religious youth

Implicit prioritization of religion in educational system (assignment of religious teachers as school principles, compulsory religion courses)

AGENDA OF PUBLİC İNSTİTUTİONS ON YOUTH REGARDİNG EDUCATİON

Many more young people in the higher education in spite of low quality of educational institutions

Promotion of distance education Establishement of more youth centres

and sport facilities More budget for youth sport

competitions and sports training

AGENDA OF PARENTS AND SCHOOLS FOR YOUTH PARTİCİPATİON

Discouragement (even banning) of active forms of civic and political participation due to protective parental attitudes and political polarization among the youth in the recent past, 1960, 1971, 1980 military interventions contributed to the avoidance of being very active.

AGENDA OF CİVİL SOCİETY ORGANİSATİONS/NGOS ON YOUTH

UN-related organisations attempt for promoting sexual health of different youth categories including youth in education and out of education youth.

Public campaigns for increasing schooling of girls especially from disadvanted backgrounds

Slight increase in the numbers of youth organizations and activities promoting especially civic engagement of young individuals

REPRESENTATİON OF MİNORİTY/İMMİGRANT İSSUES İN THE DOCUMENTS

The conception of ‘minority’ in Turkey implies differences from most of the European countries. According to the Turkish Constitution, the concept of citizenship does not include any reference to one’s ethnic and/or religious identity. It is estimated that there are about 50 different ethnic groups in the current nation of Turkey.

Legally all citizens without reference to their ethnic or religious backgrounds have equal rights and obligations. Since the foundation of the Turkish Republic, the only protection for minorities has been that set out in the 1923 with the Treaty of Lausanne. In the Treaty only the non-Muslim populations are defined as minorities (Minority Rights Group International, 2007).

REPRESENTATİON OF MİNORİTY/İMMİGRANT İSSUES İN THE DOCUMENTS

In the process of creation of a nation state ideology by Atatürk on the basis of single national identity had been emphasized.

REPRESENTATİON OF MİNORİTY/İMMİGRANT İSSUES

The conception of immigration has quite different meanings in Turkey stemming from rich cultural heritage, consisting of a variety of cultural populations and transition from Ottoman Empire to Turkish Republic

Most of the Turkish citizens have trans-generational immigration story

Immigrants in Turkey are not visible as they are in Europe and they do not have a strong immigration identity except from recent immigrants from Middle Eastern and European countries.

High ratios of illegal immigration to Turkey recently

REPRESENTATİON OF MİNORİTY/İMMİGRANT İSSUES İN THE GOVERNMENTAL DOCUMENTS

Lack of a comprehensive strategy for minority/immigrant issues.

Lack of registered data on ethnic minorities and immigrants.

The project team choose working with Roma and Bulgarian resettlers as minority groups which have different characteristics and problems in the participation processes.

AGENDA OF PUBLİC İNSTİTUTİONS AND NGOS ON MİNORİTİES AND İMMİGRANTS

Slight coverage of promotion of life standards of Roma people

Recent projects of NGOs for the imrovement of living conditions of Bulgarian resettlers

Focus on Kurdish issue more than before and more than other ethnic and cultural populations.

If Kurdish people are minority is a controversial issue due to their high ratio.

Alevi issue has been central in terms of religious minority for years but they still have problems in relation to their religious rights

GENERAL CONCLUSİON

Limited number of available documents regarding policies for youth, women and minorities/immigrants.

Slight increase of attention and promotion of participation of women in civil and political life

Despite huge youth population and the existance of a Ministry for Youth and Sports, there is almost no long term policies and strategies for youth participation

Almost no comprehensive policies for minorities/immigrants

The PIDOP project is supported by a grant received from the European Commission 7th Framework Programme,

FP7- SSH-2007-1, Grant Agreement no: 225282, Processes Influencing Democratic Ownership and Participation (PIDOP) awarded to the University of

Surrey (UK), University of Liege (Belgium), Masaryk University (Czech Republic), University of Jena

(Germany), University of Bologna (Italy), University of Porto (Portugal), Orebro University (Sweden), Ankara

University (Turkey) and Queen’s University Belfast (UK)