Women key to democracy: Turkish minister

By Umar Farooq</p> <p>WASHINGTON (AA) – The representation of women in public is one of the key principles for democracy, Turkey’s minister of labor, social services and family said Tuesday.</p> <p>Zehra Zumrut Selcuk said equality between men and women is strengthened in Turkey, where legal reforms are being made to not only gender equality, but to make sure there is &quot;zero tolerance towards violence against women.&quot;</p> <p>She spoke in New York at a conference, “the Role of Women-Friendly Policies in Empowerment of New Generations”, organized by Turkey as a part of the UN's 63rd Session of the Commission on the Status of Women.</p> <p>Selcuk said there were training programs conducted on combating violence against women throughout his country, and 120,000 police officers, and more than 100,000 health care professionals had taken part.</p> <p>The minister outlined “the Strategy Paper and Action Plan on Women’s Empowerment”, a five year plan to ensure women’s equal access to rights and opportunities.</p> <p>As of 2017, Turkey ranks 69th in the world in gender equality, a rank the UN noted as being 'high human development'.</p> <p>And according to data from the World Bank, the amount of salaried female workers in Turkey rose more than 20 percent between 2000 and 2017.</p> <p>Other initiatives created by Turkey include: supporting young girls who want to be engineers, providing stipends to grandmothers who are taking care of grandchildren, various vocational trainings, organized seminars on financial literacy and provide benefits to working moms.</p> <p>Selcuk mentioned one other program funded by the EU which planned to increase the number of babysitters for working mothers who find it difficult to get back into the workforce due to having to take care of their child.</p> <p>She also highlighted the rate of women representation in Turkish parliament, which rose to 17.4 percent after last year's elections, up from 4.4 percent in 2002.</p> <p>&quot;We will continue to work resolutely in order to ensure that women take part in all spheres of life in a more active, productive and stronger way,&quot; Selcuk said.</p> <p>*Betul Yuruk contributed to this report</p> <p>