A report examining the situation of 24 villages in the province of Van hit by a earthquake on 23 October and 9 November 2011 has been released. The report was part of the project led by Van Women's Association (VAKAD) and Global Dialogue.
The report examined the general problems in the areas of education, health, physical circumstances, human rights, agriculture and stockbreeding in the villages of Van. The ascertained problems have also been referred to relevant public institutions.
Below is a list of the main points highlighted in the report as published by Bianet;
- There is a primary school in 19 out of 24 villages among which only two, Alaköy and Yeşilköy, have secondary schools.
- Girls are still denied education in villages which lack in an inspection mechanism.
- The majority of elder women do not know to read and write.
- There is a widespread practice of forced early marriages and consanguineous marriages.
- Only one village provides health care service.
- Only three villages have a health care center and among them only the one in the village of Alaköy provides service.
- The health care centers in villages do not have a doctor present in spite of the family medicine practice which requires to do so. In emergency situations villagers cannot go to the hospitals in the province.
- Forced early marriages lead to a wide practice of abortion.
- Only one of the 24 villages has potable water and a sewerage system and this leads to a number of infection related diseases.
- There is a constant power failure in the villages where the cold weather mainly affects those who are forced to live in containers and use electric fire because of the delay in the building of new houses after the earthquakes.
- The faulty reports of the General Directorate of Natural Disasters (AFAD) lead to a remarkable housing problem although a period of over a year has passed over the earthquakes. There is a high probability of fire outbreak in particular.
- The agricultural production in villages is quite low.
The villages examined  in the scope of the project are ; Adıgüzel, Akçaören, Alaköy, Arısu, Atmaca, Çitören, Dibekdüzü, Dilimli, Göllü, Gülsünler, Güveçli, Hıdırköy, Kasımoğlu, Koçköy, Ocaklı, Özkaynak, Şahgeldi, Satıbey, Tabanlı, Yemlice,Yumrutepe, Gedikbulak, Mollakasım, Yeşilköy.

The Association for Solidarity with Earthquake Victims in Van sent letters to the group deputy chairs of four political parties, BDP (Peace and Democracy Party), CHP (Republican People's Party), AKP (Justice and Development Party) and MHP (Nationalist Movement Party), on Monday, telling about the problems caused by the two major earthquakes that hit the city on 23 October and 9 November 2011.

In a press conference in front of the post office, the spokesman of the Association, Mürsel Alkan, pointed out that the people in Van are now facing conditions worse than those before the earthquakes occurred. Alkan said that “The whole country thinks that the wounds of earthquake victims have been healed, that TOKI (housing development administration of Turkey) has provided people with houses they are in need of, that services in the areas of education and health have got back into circulation and that the city has achieved an environment more modern and active than before. This is how we also want to see our city but the situation is unfortunately quite different.”

Alkan pointed out that TOKI houses have been delivered to people like a favour and that this caused a great anger in victims of the two major earthquakes. Alkan said that the people who have been provided with a TOKI house in Van are being subject to confiscation racket like ordinary TOKI customers.

Speaking after, lawyer Aysel Tekerek, a founding member of the Association, underlined that earthquake victims in Van are forced to pay between 75 and 110 thousand TL for a flat in TOKI buildings, while the same flats are sold for 55,000 TL in Ankara's Mamak district.