A group of media workers in Diyarbakýr have established Turkey’s first women news agency on 8 March International Women’s Day. Jin News Agency (JÝNHA) which will provide news in Turkish, Kurdish and English will employ only women.

The Diyarbakýr based agency, established with the support of a businesswoman, will also open branches in other cities including Ýstanbul, Ankara, Ýzmir, Trabzon and Van.

Hangöl Özbat, the agency’s director for Kurdish news said: “While working for the press for a long time, we, feminist women, have been troubled with sexist statements like ‘man of science and business man” which are too often used in the media language. We established this agency to stand against this approach which imposes these kinds of statements on the society by means of the press. We have started out with 12 woman workers and we will strengthen our staff with the participation of more woman workers in the following months. We aim to change the male-dominant language of the media by reflecting the news from the viewpoint of women. The world will change after us.”