Fostering women’s access to justice in Türkiye

The action on “Fostering women’s access to justice in Türkiye”, implemented under the European Union and Council of Europe’s joint “Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Turkey 2019-2022”, aimed to strengthen women's access to justice in Türkiye in line with international and European standards.

About the project

The action contributed to enhance accessibility and quality of legal aid and victim support services for women and supporting key stakeholders, including civil society, to facilitate women’s access to justice in Türkiye.

The action contributed to following specific objectives:

Improving the gender responsiveness of legal aid and victim support services to effectively respond to the needs of women.
Enhancing legal aid access for women, including through working with legal aid lawyers and civil society.
Increasing legal literacy and awareness among women, especially groups of women in vulnerable situation.

Results achieved:

Knowledge generated among key stakeholders on barriers for women's access to justice and legal aid and support services in Türkiye and on how to remove them.
Enhanced quality and gender responsiveness of legal aid and judicial support services through capacity building of legal aid and judicial support professionals.
Provision of legal aid and assistance to women in selected communities, including those from vulnerable or disadvantaged groups, by legal aid lawyers trained on gender-sensitive and victim-centred approaches.
Increased awareness and knowledge among women on their legal rights, how to exercise them and on available legal remedies and services, including legal aid and judicial support services.
Increased awareness and understanding among key stakeholders, including judicial and statistical authorities, on measuring women's access to justice and legal aid.

Project activities

The action carried out the following activities:

A research/study on the reality of barriers of women’s access to justice and legal aid in Türkiye with recommendations and ways forward
Providing legal aid to women, particularly to those from disadvantaged groups, by trained legal aid lawyers, in selected provinces
Capacity building programmes for legal aid lawyers and judicial support officers, on women’s access to justice, including training of trainers and online tutored training through Council of Europe HELP Programme (Human Rights Education for Legal Professionals).
Guidelines/checklist for lawyers providing legal aid for women.
Seminar and publication on measuring women’s access to justice and legal aid through a seminar sharing European standards and promising practices
Targeted outreach and awareness raising workshops, seminars, materials, publications and translations.

Project publications and translations

Publications

Research Report on Understanding Barriers to Women’s Access to Justice and Legal Aid in Türkiye - ENG / TUR

Handbook for Legal Aid Lawyers on Women’s Access to Justice in Türkiye - ENG / TUR

Handbook on Strategic Litigation in the Area of Women’s Rights for Legal Practitioners in Türkiye - ENG / TUR

Translations

Gender equality and women’s rights – Council of Europe key standards - ENG / TUR

Guaranteeing equal access of women to justice – ENG / TUR

Equal access to justice in the case-law on violence against women before the European Court of Human Rights - ENG / TUR

Women’s access to justice: a guide for legal practitioners - ENG / TUR

Framework for measuring access to justice including specific challenges facing women - UN Women - Council of Europe - ENG / TUR

Roundtable on "Framework to measure access to justice including specific challenges facing women - ENG / TUR

News

Back Four civil society organisations awarded grants to increase women’s legal awareness in Turkey

Within the framework of the European Union and Council of Europe joint programme “Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Turkey 2019-2022” and its action “Fostering women’s access to justice in Turkey”, the Council of Europe selected four proposals from well-established and experienced civil society organisations (CSOs) to provide financial support for their initiatives to increase awareness and legal literacy among women to claim their rights and access to justice and services as equal citizens. The action launched a call for CSOs for their projects focusing on support and empowering women as rights-holders, particularly those from vulnerable and disadvantaged groups, such as women victims of violence and refugee women.

The selected CSOs and their projects are as follows:

Soroptimist International (SI) of Turkey – Türkiye Soroptimist Kulupleri İş ve Meslek Kadınları Dernekleri Federasyonu:

The proposal submitted by the federation aims to increase women’s legal literacy in three main themes: women’s human rights and combating gender-based violence; women’s economic rights and family law. 500 women in eight provinces (Adana, Ankara, Bursa, Denizli, Eskişehir, Hatay, İstanbul, İzmir, Mersin and Zonguldak) will be provided gamified training (innovative training programmes through games) and consultation sessions to provide legal information to women about their rights and available justice mechanisms to develop their legal literacy. A legal literacy campaign will also be conducted through social media with posts and videos.

The Foundation for Women’s Solidarity (FWS) - Kadın Dayanışma Vakfı:

The Foundation’s proposal focuses on increasing the capacity of Women Counselling Centre (WCC) of the Foundation to provide support and information to women victims of violence and on empowering a nationwide network of lawyers in the provinces where it is most needed for advancing their efforts to transform the legal aid system towards a gender-responsive, accessible, and reliable service for women in vulnerable situations.

The Association of Solidarity with Syrian Refugees in Izmir - İzmir'de Suriyeli Mültecilerle Dayanışma Derneği:

The proposal aims to increase the legal literacy and legal awareness of refugee women — who are among the vulnerable women group — through capacity building and awareness raising activities, including development of a mobile application, website, and their content in the languages of target women (Turkish and Arabic), podcasts, videos and a handbook.

Flying Broom Foundation- Uçan Süpürge Vakfı:

The proposal focusing on increasing awareness among young legal professionals and society in general about the girls’ access to justice, challenges and existing barriers through capacity development activities and digital media campaign.

All above-mentioned awareness raising activities are planned to be carried by the CSOs between April and November 2022.