Turkish women score victory for equality

The sun is setting on an era when man ruled supreme

Turkey's parliament has ratified changes to a 76-year-old civil code to make men and women equal before the law.

Turkey rejected Islamic law in favour of a more secular legal code decades ago, but the civil code that was in use did not legally treat men and women as equals, proclaiming men as the heads of households and requiring women to seek permission from their husbands in order to work.

After a month of debate, the Turkish parliament has adopted a far-reaching revision to this code, formally recognising men and women as equals.

Equal footing for women

The new code comes into effect on 1 January 2002 and has been warmly welcomed by the country's press.

Equal partners

"Who says the man is the head of the house!" exclaimed the mass-circulation daily Milliyet. Other papers carried similar headlines. "Now the spouses are equal," the centre-right daily Sabah proclaimed, while Hurriyet noted with satisfaction that the civil code had finally been brought up to date.

Turkey is now in a position to compete with all the developed countries in the arena of women's rights and their place in the community

Hurriyet

"Turkey is now in a position to compete with all the developed countries in the arena of women's rights and their place in the community," one Hurriyet columnist wrote.

A right to choose

The new law gives women a much greater say in decisions concerning the home and children. Property will be owned jointly by husband and wife.

A woman will no longer need to obtain her husband's consent before working outside the home, and will also have an equal say in choosing where to live.

Women are now entitled to sue for divorce if their husband commits adultery, and have acquired the right to claim compensation and alimony. Previously, a woman was only entitled to keep property legally registered in her name.

The new law also addresses the question of terminology. Women are now entitled to continue to use their maiden names - as the daily Aksam noted, a woman is not merely a "wife" any more.

A big step, but...

Nonetheless, some have expressed pessimism regarding the new code, saying that people's way of thinking needs to be changed first.

"How, in a country which hasn't got even one female minister of state, will one make radical changes?", asked one commentator.

The new code has also had a mixed reception amongst women's groups.

Over one hundred women's organisations issued a joint statement in the wake of the changes, complaining that they do not go far enough.

Turkey granted women the right to vote and serve in parliament in 1934 following the founding of the modern republic 11 years earlier.

Women have had access to education, equal charge of their children and the right to divorce their husbands for several decades, and the country's first female prime minister was elected in 1993.

BBC Monitoring, based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.