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Gender equality is not only a fundamental human right, but it is also necessary for a peaceful society, the attainment of full human potential, and long-term progress. It can also play a significant role in the growth of any modern economy. Therefore, it is critical to realize that men and women may both contribute to societal growth. A holistic approach, sound policies, and long-term commitment by all levels of government are essential for women's empowerment to become a reality. In addition, gender equality must be a priority in developing national policies and initiatives. Despite improvements in Turkish women's social, political, and economic lives, women's empowerment has yet to be attained. This research explores the position of women in school and the labor market in Turkey before and after the emergence of COVID-19. The research highlights the problems and opportunities that women regarding participating in the Turkish economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the ongoing conflict in Syria and all that it signifies, the number of women refugees is seeing a rapid upturn, and this has led to a rise in the number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Turkey providing support to this specific segment of society. Most of the studies carried out in the field recently focus on the status of Syrian women in Turkey and the impacts migration has had on them, while the perspectives of NGOs on the empowerment of women has been, on the whole, understudied. Based on the data collected from representatives of NGOs this study aims to fill this gap by analysing the approaches and practices of NGOs to the empowerment of refugee women. The results clearly indicate that the approach of NGOs to the empowerment of women differ depending on their type, being either family-oriented, protection-based, or women solidarity-focused. It was further found that the women solidarity-focused approach has a potential to pave the way for social empowerment with the ability to challenge gender inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been an irregular migration issue between Turkey and the European Union (EU) since almost the year 2010. This issue has turned into a "crisis" as a result of the rapid increase in illegal entries from Turkey to the EU countries. The geographical location of Turkey has led to becoming a transit country towards the EU countries for migrants. This situation has led to massive migration flows that almost no country has encountered to Turkey in the last decade. Most of the migrants with different statuses in Turkey, especially those coming from Syria, consist of women and children. This situation requires a gender perspective to deal with irregular migration entirely. The measures taken by the United Nations and the EU in this regard are insufficient due to the number and the density of migrants in some regions of Turkey. The Republic of Turkey has tried to manage this sudden and irregular migration, besides, it has coped with heavy fiscal and social burdens. The Facility for Refugees in Turkey (FRIT) has been developed and put into practice within the context of the financial assistance programs and projects between Turkey and the EU. This study examines the elements of the gender perspective and the positive and negative aspects of implementation within the framework of the FRIT. The results show that more efforts are needed within the scope of the FRIT on "supporting, protecting and ensuring the human rights of women and girls, gender equality and empowerment of women and girls". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Moving from the assumption that local governments are significant stakeholders of women's empowerment policies, this article aims to examine the struggle against violence against women (VAW) at the local level through gender-sensitive policies employed by female mayors from a gender perspective and how these can be utilized as collective transformative resources for women's empowerment. Based on a field-study, the contention of this article is that gender budgeting, gender-sensitive collective-labor contracts, and women's support centers are institutional resources for the transformation of the municipal-budget, for attitude transformation in male employees, and for sustainable empowerment policies in the struggle against VAW in municipalities in Turkey. This article, stressing the link between the struggle against VAW and women's empowerment, reveals the significance of institutionalization of gender-sensitive policies and the struggle at local level as two prominent factors taken to be into consideration in women's empowerment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Union's (EU) gender equality norms are an important part of the EU's identity, as enshrined in many formal documents. The scope of the EU's gender equality approach has been broadened by agents, including feminists, transnational advocacy groups, national women NGOs, feminists in the European Parliament, and the European women's lobby. Despite these European-based feminist agents' ideational contributions that challenge socially constructed gender inequalities, EU policies and acquis privilege women's empowerment in the labor market, instead of combatting genderbased discrimination in every sphere of life. This market-based equality paradigm can also be seen in the enlargement documents of Turkey-EU relations, in which both the progress reports and the financial assistance programmes-such as IPA- prioritize women's economic independence as a solution for altering socially-constructed gender roles in Turkey. Even thoughin feminist understanding-women's empowerment within the context of labor market approachlacks a conceptualization of gender equality as ahuman right, this paper aims to analyze the degree of EU's norm promoter role through transference diffusion in the female labor market participation. It is argued that due to the public institutions' entrenched resistance and the lack of consent at the local level for ideational change; the EU-driven norm clashes with the local realities of Turkey and this challenges the EU's potential normative power in terms of human rights norm promotion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]