Domestic Life: Canan Arın

“As a woman, I always worked freely for what I believed in. If you have a cause you believe in, you can achieve anything. The women’s movement in Turkey has always been very strong. While in the past family law used be a completely macho system, we made sure that necessary rules were put in place for the protection of equality within the family. In the old penal code, when a woman was raped, this offence was considered to be against not the body of the woman, but public conduct and family order.

The female body was seen as a commodity in which the property rights passed from father to husband. The most striking examples of this were seen in honour killings, killings committed in the name of honour, within the framework of the old penal code. In the new penal code, these crimes are grouped under crimes against sexual freedoms, which indicated that the state recognized that people have sexual immunity. The current government tends to ignore all kinds of violence - be it psychological, physical or sexual - within the family in order to protect the ‘family institution’. They ignore the individual rights of women since they define their role in the family only as wives and mothers.

However, as women learn about their rights, they no longer accept being subjected to this violence. Divorce rates are also increasing accordingly. The women’s movement is spreading faster and faster in Turkey in the last 40 years. During these years women’s research centres have been founded in universities, and there are centres by women’s organizations in almost every city. Women take to the streets and make themselves heard on 8th March and 25th November despite the police violence. Women are growing their movement consciously, knowing what they want. There have been disagreements about the Istanbul Convention even within the government itself. I want to have hope for the next ten years. We will continue to resist.”

Lawyer Canan Arın is one of Turkey's icons in the women's movement. She was part of the second wave feminist movement which started during the 1980 martial law in Turkey, and since then has fought against male violence, contributing to the development of policies on this issue and to the changing of policies in favour of women. Arın, who took part in the foundation of Kadın Adayları Destekleme Derneği (Association for Supporting Women Candidates) and İstanbul Barosu Kadın Hakları Uygulama Merkezi, (Women’s Rights Application Centre of Istanbul Bar Association) is also one of the founders of Mor Çatı Women’s Shelter Foundation.

The feminist lawyer was awarded the Bruno Leoni Award due to her brave work on women’s rights in Turkey, and fights for women to have free and independent lives with her work on misogynist policies, the relationship of these policies with femicide, and on maintenance rights of women. At this point, women need to expand their present rights and take their existing rights under protection in order to establish a life away from the gender-based discrimination and male violence, according to Arın, who thinks that we need to teach gender equality to children at an early age in order to wage an organized and informed fight for women’s rights. These days, Arın is delivering her opinions, attending various television shows and fighting with all her power, along with all women’s organizations in Turkey, to keep the Istanbul Convention untouched. Arın, who has been fighting for women’s rights and women’s self-determination for more than 40 years, has been awarded the 2021 Anne Klein Woman Award of the Heinrich Böll Foundation.