MP Meral Danış Beştaş: “There is a lot of work we can do, and we, after all, are the half of this country”

We spoke with Meral Danış Beştaş, member of Parliament from the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), one of the lawyers in the Opuz Case, in which the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) held a state accountable for discrimination caused by gender-based domestic violence for the first time. Beştaş explains how the Opuz Case was foundational for the Istanbul Convention.

“Protecting women is not the same as protecting the family,” says Mine Akarsu from Mor Çatı Women’s Shelter Foundation.

The state, which under normal circumstances has no qualms about meddling with our private lives, anchors such cases to the protection of family in a patriarchal manner if the case involves a family.

Feminist Lawyer Canan Arın: “Istanbul Convention is the human rights convention of women.”

We used to struggle to extend our rights, and now, we are reduced to a position of trying to preserve them.

Pin It on Pinterest