First actions of the trustees appointed by the AKP government through statutory decrees has been to close off women’s centers in the DBP municipalities and confiscate private information belonging to the women in the centers. Along with this practice targeting women, the fact that all trustees appointed to DBP municipalities, which had the co-mayor system in place, are men have caused concerns that the women subjected to violence will be victimized even more.

TWO WOMEN’S CENTERS CLOSED IN SİLVAN AND CİZRE

District governor Murat Kütük was appointed as trustee to Diyarbakır’s Silvan district. His first act was to close the Meya Women’s Center. Governor Ahmet Adanur was appointed as trustee to Cizre and he also closed the municipality’s women’s center. In both districts, all private information of women and documents were confiscated.

HDP Women’s Assembly Spokesperson Besime Konca spoke to the ANF about the trustees and said these two practices showed that the trustee system was an attack against the earned rights and securities of women.

Konca underlined that for a pro-women life, they took equal representation in all units of the municipality, from the mayor to the workers, and mentioned the practices like paying the wages to the wife or terminating contracts for men who are violent in the home for the prevention of violence against women among municipality workers.

“ALL EFFORTS HAVE SUFFERED A GREAT BLOW”

Konca pointed out that most of the trustee-appointed municipalities have women’s centers and said that Women’s Affairs Departments had also been set up in metropolitan and provincial municipalities to coordinate all efforts relating to women. Konca said they focused on victims of violence, but also focused on efforts to support women for their inclusion to social and economic life and expressed that the efforts had suffered a great blow with the appointment of trustees.

“THOSE DOCUMENTS ARE PRIVATE”

Konca said no women will ever trust the municipality institutions after the police and soldiers entered them, and continued: “In the women’s centers, all private information and documents belonging to the victims of violence were confiscated. Those documents are private for these women. We don’t know who confiscated the documents and how they will use this private information. Thus we are obviously concerned for the women. It’s important for women to trust the institutions working for their issues. Women won’t trust the institutions in the trustee-appointed municipalities and thus won’t go there.”

“EFFORTS WILL CONTINUE IN LOCAL INSTITUTIONS”

HDP Women’s Assembly Spokesperson Besime Konca said the women in Cizre and Silvan also suffered through great destruction during the curfews and continued: “Through this process of destruction, the worst affected were the women. That is why we will never leave the women on their own, despite the trustees. We will continue the efforts elsewhere. This surely won’t be easy, but the pro-women efforts will continue.”

Konca mentioned a women was attacked for wearing shorts in Istanbul and the sexist attacker had been released, and a young woman in İzmir had been sexually attacked because of her outfit, and concluded her words with:

“Women have always been under attack. But this time, the attacks are legitimized through the media. The government’s statements legitimize attacks on women. We are facing a mindset that doesn’t see any life for the woman outside of the home. This is why we as all women should stand together against both the trustee coup and anti-women policies.”