The Women for Women’s Rights Project—“New Ways” in Turkey, gained the financial support of government to implement human rights education for women. This support allowed the organization to carry their program out much more extensively in communities, reaching many more people in the country.
Even though women’s rights have been protected under Turkish law since the beginning of the Republic, in reality, they felt that the majority of women didn’t know they have rights and were under the control of traditional practices carried out by the men in their lives. In areas such as marriage, divorce, inheritance, and work, they saw that many Turkish women experience discrimination and abuse.
The Women for Women’s Human Rights project believed human rights education among women would help them to claim their rights. The group concluded that their education program would need to be sustained and promoted in a more institutionalized way to have a significant impact on women’s lives. As a result, they moved to collaborate with the government to implement the human rights education through government social workers and community centers and has now been able to provide group facilitator training to 94 social workers in 28 cities, and has involved over 1,300 women in the program. The organization provides on-going consultation and support to the trained social workers through letters, phone calls and site visits.
There were a number of important steps taken that were essential in gaining government support to supply the personnel and community center resources. The group researched the appropriateness of utilizing the government community centers and the social workers who run them. Because the vision of the community centers was based on a horizontal model of administration—run and supported by the community itself rather than a “top-down” model—this was very compatible and made it possible for the women’s human rights program to be implemented in these Community Centers.
The organization then determined that they would need support from high levels in government to carry out their plan. They believed the General Directorate of the government’s social service department, which had created the community centers, would be a potential ally in implementing their pilot education program. They arranged to meet with the head of the department to present extensive research on women and law, human rights violations against women, and the program they developed. The group gained the support of the General Directorate of the government social service department to implement the program in its entirety, including an agreement that the sixteen modules would be taught without changes. Additional modules could be added and would be welcomed to address specific regional issues identified by the women themselves but the core program would remain the same.
In order to maintain the support of the government, the group equipped the General Directorate with detailed information about pertinent human rights abuses and the women’s rights education program. This allowed the General Directorate to defend the agreement to offer government financial support to the program, if confronted with opposition to this decision.
Women’s for Women’s Rights ultimately signed a protocol with the government community centers to train the social workers as group facilitators to provide the women’s rights program. The social workers participated in the 16 module program themselves as well as receiving facilitation training. They then implemented the program as facilitators with a group of women in their own community center with support from Women for Women’s Human Rights. This process ensures that the personnel at the centers maintain the integrity of the program. They understand the program and they can provide it to others.
This tactic can provide ideas and insights into the utilization of government resources to promote human rights endeavors in a wide variety of arenas such as education, health, and victim or special population services to name a few. In implementing this tactic, it is important to identify potential allies in government and take the time to understand the agency that will be approached for funds. Other considerations include the risk that government priorities will shift, or that supporters within the targeted agency will leave, affecting future support for the program.
Using government resources to institute women's human rights education
