JINHA

ISTANBUL – Candidates with the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) say that their first goal if they enter Turkey's Parliament after the election will be to found a Women's Ministry.

Currently, the government unit that covers women's issues in Turkey is the Ministry of Family and Social Policies. The ministry has come under heavy fire to reducing women to the role of motherhood. The HDP is calling for a new governmental and legal order in Turkey that prioritizes women, including with a Women's Ministry.

Women are extremely under-represented in Turkey's Parliament; the country of 75 million has less than a hundred female MPs. The HDP, the first party in Turkey's history to implement a gender parity policy, is working to pass the high 10% electoral threshold in the June 7 election and enter Parliament for the first time. If it does, the percentage of women in the Parliament will increase by around 20%.

"Our first project on entering the Parliament will be to do everything we can to change the anti-democratic constitution, because women are nowhere in it," said Meliha Varışlı, a candidate with the HDP in Istanbul's second electoral region. She said founding a Women's Ministry in place of the Ministry of Family and Social Policies would be key to this project.

Meliha noted the women's movement has organized extensively against the lack of recognition and protection for women in Turkey.

"Your father, your husband can be the most democratic person in the world, but don't forget that rights aren't given; they're taken. This is why women need to organize," she said.

(ed-dk/dc/fk/cm)