The Human Rights Education Program for Women in Turkey

By Liz Ervecik Amado
Download full notebook in english and a brief summary of the notebook in Russian and Armenian below.

The Human Rights Education Program for Women (HREP): Utilizing state resources to promote women’s human rights in Turkey provides an overview of HREP’s success in promoting women’s human rights on the grassroots level and in serving as a catalyst for social change, and we explore as well the tactic of utilizing state resources for human rights education.

Since its pilot application phase in Istanbul shantytowns during 1995–1996, the Human Rights Education Program for Women (HREP), developed by WWHR–New Ways, has expanded to 30 cities throughout all regions of Turkey. More than 4,000 women have participated in the program, which is currently the most widespread and comprehensive non-formal human rights education program in Turkey and in the region.

Within the human rights framework the education program explores civil, economic, political, sexual, reproductive and sexual rights, gender sensitive parenting, children’s rights, and violence against women, with a focus on grassroots organizing and mobilization for social change. And through discussions of women’s human rights and violations in relation to participants’ personal experiences, along with workshops on communication skills, the program provides the tools to apply the critical consciousness of human rights to life. In this program a variety of fields—law, education, gender, psychology, personal development and political activism—intersect within a holistic perspective. The methodology of the program, with its participatory approach and closed group format, is a major factor in the success of the program, creating an atmosphere of trust and solidarity among the women.

To maintain and expand this broad outreach, WWHR–New Ways has utilized state resources to implement the program in community centers. The tactic, in fact, emerged as a promising collaboration and came to initial success when we signed a protocol with the General Directorate of Social Services in 1998 to implement HREP in these centers. Through the protocol, WWHR–New Ways trains social workers as HREP trainers, and these trainers implement the program in community centers throughout the country.

These government-sponsored and supported community centers are set up primarily in socio-economically disadvantaged areas of Turkey. Unlike many other state institutions, they do not run with a hierarchical topdown structure. By aspiring to cater to the community’s needs, they provide an appropriate setting for the implementation of HREP. And as they are state institutions, they are much more accessible to women, who face little resistance from husbands or families for spending time at a community center. The collaboration has thus proved very fruitful in a number of ways.