President Erdoğan: Our faith, culture, civilization, constitution and laws command us to cherish women
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan addressed women mukhtars at a meeting at the Presidential Complex.
Congratulating all the ladies in Türkiye on International Women’s Day, President Erdoğan underlined that man and woman gave meaning to each other. “We cannot accept that one of these two beings, which so perfectly complete each other, be regarded to be inadequate, be otherized, discriminated against or be subjected to violence simply because of their gender. Our faith, culture, civilization, constitution and laws command us to cherish women.”
Highlighting advocating women’s rights as one of the most significant struggles of his political life, President Erdoğan said: “Our constitution clearly states that ‘No one shall be deprived of the right of education.’ However, our women had been deprived of their right of education for years. We provided them with this right.”
“WE LIFTED ALL OBSTACLES TO ENRICHING TÜRKİYE’S HUMAN CAPITAL”
President Erdoğan continued his speech as follows: “Although our constitution states that ’every citizen has the right to be elected’ and there is no condition such as ’to wear a headscarf’ among the barriers to being elected as a member of parliament, we have enabled women to exercise their unlawfully usurped right to be elected. Thus the net enrollment rate in higher education increased from 14.6 percent in 2002 to 43.4 percent. And this rate reached a record high of 48.5 percent among our female students. Our constitution clearly states that ’Work is everyone’s right and duty’, ’Every Turk has the right to enter public service’, ’There can be no discrimination in employment other than the qualifications required by the job.’ However, we gave this right to women who had been unfairly deprived of their right to work in the public sector.”
Stating that the government removed all obstacles to the enrichment of Türkiye’s human capital in every area, notably in education and working life, President Erdoğan said: “We have ended the discrimination between women with and without headscarves. We have transformed Türkiye from a country of prohibitions into a place where equality of opportunity and justice prevail in every field. We have made positive discrimination in favor of women a constitutional rule. We have given the state a duty to eliminate the inequality between women and men.”
