Women’s hard-won democratic gains in Turkey are at risk, a senior opposition lawmaker warned, as the country’s ranks 125th out of 185 nations for women’s political representation, according to the UN’s “Women in Politics 2025” report.
Aylin Nazlıaka, deputy chair of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), said only 118 of Turkey’s 592 lawmakers are women. She added that Turkey fares even worse at the ministerial level, ranking 172nd out of 189 countries in the UN report.
Nazlıaka said meaningful representation of women in national parliaments and local governments requires at least 33 percent participation, while Turkey remains just at 19.8 percent. She noted that women hold an average of 35 percent of cabinet positions in OECD countries, compared with only 5.6 percent in Turkey.
Following recent amendments to the CHP’s party program, Nazlıaka said the party plans to implement gender and age quotas to help boost women’s representation.
She added that the decline in women’s political representation reflects broader setbacks in their economic and social participation, citing Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) data showing an 81.5 percent increase over the past five years in the number of women leaving the workforce for family or personal reasons.
Women’s rights violations in Turkey have also been increasing, while gender-based violence remains a prominent public concern.
A key indicator of this decline was Turkey’s withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention in March 2021 by presidential decree. In a move that attracted national and international outrage, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan withdrew the country from the convention, which requires governments to adopt legislation prosecuting perpetrators of domestic violence and similar abuse as well as marital rape and female genital mutilation.
The Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence, better known as the Istanbul Convention, is an international accord designed to protect women’s rights and prevent domestic violence in societies and was opened to the signature of Council of Europe member states in 2011. Turkey had been a party to the convention until 2021.
Erdoğan’s allies have also been calling for further rollbacks, urging the repeal of a domestic law that stipulates protection mechanisms for women who either have suffered or are at risk of suffering violence.
