- Among the many issues bringing protestors together at Gezi
Park, the now-iconic site of struggle in Istanbul’s Taksim Square, is the
demand for women’s liberation.
Coming from many walks of life
and expressing a myriad of ideals and values, the women of the Occupy Gezi
Movement have nevertheless voiced a collective desire: to fight the
undercurrent of deeply entrenched patriarchal values and reclaim autonomy over
their own bodies and lifestyles.
These demands are now coalescing around proposed legislation
from the country’s Health Ministry that will call on pharmacies to limit the
sale of oral contraception known as the morning-after pill only to those with a
doctor’s prescription, a practice that is uncommon for most drugs available to
the public here.
Under Turkey’s conservative-leaning Justice and Development
Party (AKP) government, women are encouraged to have at least three children to
help maintain population growth rates.
Feminists and women’s rights groups representing almost 400
people say the new legislation is part of government attempts to impose traditional
values onto their lifestyle, and will only reinforce stereotypes about the
“ideal” Turkish woman, while stigmatising those who stray from this image.
“I can’t go to the family doctor (for my contraceptive needs)
because it is a secretive issue for me,” said Merve Kosar, a 26-year-old
Istanbulite who relies on the pharmacy to replenish her supply of the drug.
In Turkey, most non-narcotic drugs are available for purchase
over the counter. Insisting on a prescription from a family doctor, who can report
to other members of the family, places added pressure on women to conform to
conservative mores.
Women like Kosar, who make the conscious decision to have sex
before marriage, are worried about having fewer options to guard against
unwanted pregnancies.
Nearly 34 percent of once-married and currently married women
said they use morning-after pills as their main form of contraception,
according to the 2008 Turkey Demographic and Health Survey.
Still, the possibility of parliament passing the bill under a
larger package of reforms sometime this year seems likely and concerns women’s
rights groups who say the announcement will hinder some from asking pharmacies
for pills.
An article in the Hurriyet Daily News cited a
notice from the Health Ministry, which stated that “growth hormones,
antibiotics, antidepressants, and antihistamines” must be sold with a doctor’s
prescription to reduce the misuse of drugs.
According to Zerrin Guker, a pharmacist in the commercial
neighbourhood of Karakoy who sells 15 to 20 boxes of the morning-after pill per
month, some customers have been misusing the drug by purchasing it a few times
per week, which can cause hormonal side effects.
A 27-year-old protestor named Elif, who declined to give her
last name for fear of retribution, said she suffered blood clots and nausea
after taking the pill once; yet she still believes in a woman’s right to choose
and says the government’s proposed restriction is designed to prevent unmarried
women from having sexual relationships.
“Most women can’t even buy
tampons or feminine products from stores because they are ashamed,” she told
IPS, stressing that the culture of shame has become entrenched in society.
A long fight to overturn these
attitudes is slowly showing results: ideals about abstinence until marriage,
for instance, are shrinking, as women continue to speak out about their
grievances with men including harassment and sexist swearing, practices
that have infiltrated the Occupy Gezi Movement.
At a recent meeting in Yogurtçu Park
in Istanbul’s Kadikoy district, more than 100 women gathered to discuss their
experiences at Gezi Park.
One protestor said a drunken man
grabbed her buttocks one night, while bystanders justified his actions saying
he had been under the influence.
Another woman read out a list of
complaints with the governing party, which included attempts to get rid of
“dekolte” (low-cut dresses) and state attempts to ban abortions and “keep women
at home.”
A year ago, Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan called for tighter restrictions on reproductive health by
drafting a bill that would shorten the time period in which women can have an
abortion from 10 weeks to eight weeks.
“There is no difference between
killing the foetus in a mother’s womb or killing a person after birth,” Erdogan
said in a speech before female politicians in the capital, Ankara, last year.
His words drew the ire of around
3,000 to 4,000 protestors, mostly women, who marched against the anti-abortion
law in Kadikoy last June, waving banners proclaiming statements such as: “It is
my body, so who are you?”
When abortion became legal in
1983, the Turkish Population and Health Survey found that 37 percent of
once-married Turkish women had at least one abortion. As of 2008, that figure
stood at 14.8 abortions per 1,000 women.
While the latest call to limit
oral contraception has yet to spark demonstrations, many believe it will
eventually ignite the tensions that have been simmering for years now.
Ayse Dunkan, journalist and
activist, believes the outcry will pick up momentum, with more people rebelling
against the “conservative concept (that) women (must) stay home and raise
children.”
Such ideals, she told IPS, have
resulted in Turkey having the world’s second highest population growth rate
after China.
Selime Buyukgoze, a volunteer at
Mor Cati, an Istanbul-based network for battered women, called the proposal
“problematic” since the morning-after pill must be taken within 72 hours of
having unprotected sex and few women will be able to reach their doctors that
soon.
Like most others, though, her
biggest fear is that doctors will break a woman’s confidence by reporting her
lifestyle to the family.
Ahmet Kaya, a family doctor who
sees almost 150 patients a week, rebukes that claim. “If your patient doesn’t
want you to inform her family, you can’t make that call,” he told IPS.
At the moment, pharmacies are
continuing to sell the pill without asking for a prescription
It remains to be seen whether or
not the government will push ahead with the law, or whether it will respond to
the will of more than 1.5 million female protesters.
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