JINHA

NEWS CENTER – Since the release of the Women's Election Manifesto in Istanbul on Wednesday by the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), women's movements in Turkey have come out in support of the new manifesto. The manifesto, translated below, calls for changes like social security coverage for domestic labor, an end to impunity for femicide and women's participation in the process for the resolution of the Kurdish question.

For the first time, the HDP is running as a registered party (rather than independent candidates) in Parliament, with a parliamentary list where women are 48% of the candidates. The women's organs of the party autonomously selected the women candidates and prepared the election manifesto. Recently, 1,000 leading feminists in Turkey signed a statement announcing their support for the party.

The text of the manifesto is provided here:

WE CAN BUILD A FREE LIFE TOGETHER, BECAUSE WE ARE 50%

We are dreaming of a new Turkey for women:

Where we aren't exposed to male violence, killed and harassed; where we can walk in the streets freely, in whatever clothing we want;

Where we can study at the schools we want, be educated in our native languages, express our thoughts and beliefs freely, be political as those who study, work and manage things;

Where we choose the profession we love and want, where we aren't mistreated for being women, where we are paid the same as men and have the same social rights; where we aren't exposed to harassment and discrimination in the workplace.

Let's dream of a Turkey where we stand up for our bodies, our identities and our labor.

Let's dream, because we can make our dreams a reality.

Because we are women.
Because we are half the world!

ENOUGH ALREADY!

Turkey is one of the countries where women experience the worst inequality in the world. Out of 142 countries researched by the World Economic Forum, Turkey comes in 125th for male-female equality.

As women, we are saying, "enough already" to decades of deprivation.

THE HDP IS A WOMEN'S PARTY.

Because it is participatory, equal and liberatory. Because its stand is clear against discrimination, sexism, oppression, exploitation, violence, intolerance, singular mindsets that don't tolerate diversity, and denialism.

In the 2015 General Elections, nearly half of our parliamentary representative candidates are women. Women decided the women candidates.

ROJAVA IS A WOMEN'S REVOLUTION.

Rojava and Kobanê have become a concrete example of the new life that we defend. Women in Rojava took part both in building a new life and in the defense against ISIS. We can do it too. We can build a new life.

AS WOMEN, WE ARE A PARTY IN THE RESOLUTION AND NEGOTIATIONS PROCESS.

If we as women participate equally and in an organized way in peace and negotiations processes, it is possible for peace to be socialized, continued and localized. The HDP will:

Take precautions to ensure that all decision-making and implementation processes in the resolution processes happen with the equal participation of women.

Ensure a budget to compensate women and girls who suffered losses in war, during the phases of democratization of the solution process and in the new arrangements that will result from it.

To bring all the crimes committed against women by JITEM members, village guards, soldiers and police into the light of day through women's truth commissions and to open a path for society and the state to reckon with itself by ensuring that these crimes are recognized as crimes against humanity.

A NEW, WOMEN-ORIENTED CONSTITUTION.

The basic agenda in the June 7th elections will be the new constitution. As women, we argue that the constitution's being woman-oriented is an important part of a new social contract. As women, we will work so that in the new constitution:

Women's rights and freedoms are recognized in the political, social, economic and cultural spheres.

All maltreatment and violence against women, the trafficking of women and the abuse of women's bodies, domestic violence and femicide are recognized as crimes against humanity.

Women are guaranteed the right to organize freely and autonomously.

WE WILL TEAR DOWN ALL MALE THRESHOLDS!

According to a report by the World Economic Forum, Turkey is 98th among 142 countries for women in Parliament and 133th for women in the cabinet. The HDP knows that a democracy where women do not participate is not a real democracy. For this reason, we consider it to be a mandatory responsibility to struggle against all roadblocks in the way of the active participation of women, who make up half of society, in all processes of politics. The HDP will:

By changing the law on political parties, ensure that the co-chair system applies in all administrative organs, not just the position of chair, and that a quota for women is in place.

By amending the elections law, ensure that there is a 50% gender quota in place in all general and local elections and that a budget is provided to support women candidates.

Replace the Ministry of Family and Social Policies with a Ministry of Women, a Ministry of Equality and a Ministry of Social Policies.

Change the Male-Female Equal Opportunity Committee to a Male-Female Equality Community to ensure equality in all opportunities, as well as processes and results, and ensure that the commission will be active through legal and budgetary means.

BUDGETING THAT ISN'T BUILT FOR WAR, BUT IS GENDER-SENSITIVE.

The profiteering and racketeering budgets of the AKP government have been designed based on a perspective of war, profit, corruption, ecological devastation, exploitation and gender discrimination. For twelve years, these budgets have been intensifying inequality and injustice.

However, centralized budgeting can be an opportunity and method for ensuring social peace and equality. For this reason, the HDP advocates the centrality of policies for gender equality and women's empowerment in the preparation of general and local budgets, as well as the creation of Gender-Sensitive Budgets.

All central budgets will be prepared in a way that removes gender inequality in the fields of education, health, social security, employment, transportation, etc.

During budgetary debates in commissions as well as plenary sessions, women's organizations will be asked for their opinions.

The rate of women public employees will be increased and their positions in decision-making processes will be strengthened.

THE BURDEN OF CARE WORK CAN'T ONLY FALL ON WOMEN.

The patriarchal capitalist system invisibilizes the labor of women inside the home to care for families. Women are held captive by thankless domestic labor: they do the laundry and cleaning, cook the food, look after children in every way, care for the sick and elderly and reproduce life. Whatever needs to happen to make the world keep turning, it happens through women's labor.

The idea of 24-hour free daycare centers in every city, village, neighborhood, workplace and industrial zone where men and women both unemployed and employed can leave their children is not a dream. We are calling on all of your to help create a model where children can be educated in their native languages, where they can learn equality and friendship, learn to look after each other and to dream, learn togetherness and solidarity.

We are against the AKP government's understanding of material aid, which close women up in the home and force care work onto women by reinforcing the sexist division of labor. We are against material aid paid insecurely, only through humiliating poverty tests and distributed at the whims of the government.

The social state is responsible for providing care services to citizens. In the new life, care services will be the right of every citizen, impoverished or not.

WOMEN'S EMPLOYMENT WILL GO UP, UNEMPLOYMENT WILL GO DOWN AND INEQUALITIES WILL BE REPAIRED.

64.8% of men of age to work are employed in our country. For women, this percentage is only 26.7%. Half (47%) of women work in the unofficial sector. Half of those women are unpaid workers in the family. For the increase of women's employment, for the reduction of unemployment and for the repair of inequalities:

There will be measures to end unsafe, poorly paid work for women and to end mobbing, harassment and other sexist policies in the workplace.

It will be mandatory for all public and private workplaces with at least 50 workers to provide a free daycare center, regardless of whether workers are men or women. All public daycare centers that have been closed will be reopened.

Municipal governments will be required to take initiatives to open neighborhood daycare centers to meet the needs of every neighborhood.

There will be increasingly tight supervision to record women working outside the official sector and to provide them with social security.

March 8 will be a paid holiday for women workers and a day of free public transportation for all women.

DOMESTIC WORKERS WILL BE INCLUDED IN LABOR LAW.

Domestic workers are workers who provide cleaning, childcare, eldercare and care for the sick in the homes of others for pay. A large majority of these workers are women.

The over one million domestic workers will be included in labor law and social security.

There will be an emergency complaint line for live-in workers to report problems with their working conditions.

The signing of the ILO's Domestic Workers Convention (Convention 189) will be ensured and all conditions preventing domestic workers from becoming unionized will be removed.

FOR WOMAN SEASONAL WORKERS, WORK WHERE THEY LIVE.

Women seasonal workers work 12-13 hour days, face alienation and racist attacks in the places where they work, live and stay in conditions that are unsuited to human dignity and face workplace massacres from traffic accidents, drowning, falling into canals, etc. All necessary precautions will be taken to change this situation.

Women will be able to work in the places where they live. Through changes in union and labor law, they will be ensured the right to organize.

There will be conventions designed to ensure housing, food, clean water, pay, working hours, workplace safety, health, social security and education for children for these workers.

SOCIAL RIGHTS ARE THE BASIS OF RIGHTS FOR EQUALITY!

While the AKP claims that the economy has grown and that income is $10,000 per person, the Turkish Statistical Institute's data show that 15% of the population (approximately 12 million people) live under the poverty line. Women are most heavily affected by this poverty.

The HDP aims to change the patriarchally administered "aid" to the fundamental right of "support."

Every home will receive 250 kilowatts of free electricity and 10 square meters of free water every month.

There will be heating support for every home.

There will be public transportation support for workers and students.

The struggle against women's poverty will be based not on "aid for individuals in need," but on a model of complete social rights.

PAYMENT TO WOMEN WHOSE HUSBANDS HAVE DIED AND TO DIVORCED WOMEN.

The social support to women whose husbands have died, who have no social security or income, will be no lower than the minimum wage.

Similar support will be given to women who are divorced, left by their husbands, whose husbands are in jail or missing, single mothers and women victims of violence.

A LIFE WITHOUT IMPEDIMENTS FOR WOMEN WITH DISABILITIES.

Citizens with disabilities, among the most disadvantaged groups in society, are alienated and deprived of their basic human rights. Women with disabilities are even more alienated and exposed to sexual, physical and psychological violence and abuse.

Within the scope of the Ministry of People with Disabilities that will be founded, there will be a Head of the Department for Women's Policies that will be exclusively concerned with the problems of women with disabilities and will develop solutions and policies on this.

The current labor law number 1475, which mandates a 3% rate of employment of people with disabilities, will be raised to 3% women with disabilities, 3% men with disabilities.

AN END TO THE MASSACRE OF WOMEN!

Violence against women has increased 1400% in the AKP period and turned into a genocide against women. A woman was killed nearly every day in 2014. According to a report by Human Rights Association, 302 women were killed in 2014 (six of them femicide), 39 women committed suicide and 13 women killed themselves in suspicious circumstances. 44 of the women died while under police protection. Family members or male partners abused 36% of women. These numbers, even if they fill us with fear, are just the examples that made it into the legal system and the press. It is well known that the read picture has a more terrifying dimension.

The struggle with femicide and violence against women is our fundamental arena of struggle. We will be in the struggle against death for women and the mindset of captivity in every area of life. We will change the laws that encourage violence and impunity.

WOMEN'S SHELTERS/HOSTELS AS FREE LIVING AREAS.

Current shelters for women (Centers for Prohibiting and Monitoring Violence (ŞÖNİM) opened in 14 provinces by the Ministry of Family and Social Policies; the 94 guest houses linked to this Ministry; the 33 guest houses linked to local governments; and the 3 shelters linked to NGOs) are far from meeting the needs of women facing violence.

All international agreements that intend to stop violence against women and ensure gender equality, starting with CEDAW, will be implemented.

There will be women's "shelters," linked either to the Ministry of Women or to local governments, opened in every city with a population greater than 50,000. There will be sanctions against cities that do not open them.

There will be legal changes to stop those being tried for femicide and violence against women from benefiting from the provisions related to "unjust provocation" and "sentence reduction from unjust provocation" in the Penal Code and from the application of the 29th article of the Turkish Penal Code.

Specialized courts will be founded to deal with cases related to all forms of sexual and physical violence against women and children. Judges, prosecutors and defense lawyers will be required to undergo education in gender equality.

There will be effective measures against marriages under the age of 18, which approach 37% of marriages. There will be educational programs against the idea of the "child bride."

There will be free living areas where women who have experienced violence can have a secure space to prepare for their future.

The Turkish Penal Code will arrive at a clear recognition of women's right to legitimate defense as a legal dimension of self-defense.

AN ENVIRONMENTAL AND WOMEN-CENTERED LIFE.

Women, as the bearers of knowledge about nature, the earth, and fruitfulness, are the leaders of the environmental struggle. In the Black Sea, the Aegean, Thrace and Hasankeyf, women are in the frontlines of the struggle against the destruction of their living spaces, the dirtying their water, and the construction of hydroelectric power plants. In the front of the struggle against the removal of nature from cities, the plundering of the city through urban transformation projects, the robbing of history, cultural relics and public spaces, and the marketization of services, we again see women in the frontlines of struggle.

Against the masculine idea of the "modern city" in local administration, there will be support for initiatives that produce ecological, gender-equal shared living spaces and for ecological city planning.

There will be support for the founding of ecological villages and cooperatives based on the mindset of women's agricultural production and women-centered production of projects and values.

AN END TO DISCRIMINATION AND SEXISM IN EDUCATION.

Education, in capitalist nation-states, is used as a vehicle of repression, for homogenization, coding, othering, and eliminating people.

Sexist, masculine, singularist, centralist, militarist, nationalist and chauvinist materials will be removed from the educational curriculum, all study books and other materials.

A lesson on Gender Equality will be a required part of the curriculum.

For women who leave school due to poverty or the need to care for siblings and then continue their education, there will be courses, workshops, panels, conferences, and other activities.

EQUAL, FREE, ACCESSIBLE, QUALITY, NATIVE LANGUAGE HEALTH SERVICES FOR WOMEN.

Today, health services have lost their public function and become commercialized. The changes under the AKP government's "Program of Transformation in Health" have resulted in every area of health services costing money. The death rate of infants has risen; illnesses like measles and malaria have returned to the point where they could become epidemics. A mindset that triggers unwanted pregnancy, miscarriage in unsafe conditions, and the death of women and their babies has become sovereign.

To be healthy is a social right. The HDP aims to provide health services that are free, public, multi-stage, serving the people, equal, accessible, in native languages, and not provided with a sexist mindset.

There will be Women's and Children's Health Centers founded in every neighborhood that women can immediately access, in coordination with local administrations.

The blocks in the way of abortion and the problems leading to unwanted pregnancies will be removed. Free family planning services will be provided.

AN END TO DISCRIMINATION IN SPORT!

Turkey is a country praised for its population capacity and for being a populous and young country. But Turkey is not a country where the people can easily access sports centers, fields and open spaces. For women, this access is the hardest.

Sport centers that women can easily access will be built in neighborhoods.

Sport administration will be democratized and women will be encouraged to participate.