Police try to inhibit World March of Women


2015-03-13 11:22:14

ANTALYA (DİHA) – Yesterday, the World March of Women marched alongside public employees laid off for union activity in the Mediterranean city of Antalya, the march's fifth stop.

The small village of Ahmetler was the first stop in Antalya for the World March of Women, who held an experience-sharing session with local women about their resistance against the construction of a hydroelectric power plant. Local women shared the story of how by setting up tents and blocking the way to the construction site, they were able to successfully stop the construction of the plant.

The women next headed to Cumhuriyet Square to meet with Antalya working women. The Antalya municipal government (run by Turkey's ruling AKP) laid off and transferred women employees to remote areas because they were members of a union. The visitors marched with the women on the municipality, calling on the municipality to re-hire the women.

Tümbel-Sen union member Birgül Yiğit Kabaklı said that the "assignment" procedures in the municipality were really an excuse for exiling workers to break the union. Reassigned workers faced harsher working conditions and hours that were especially hard on working women. Yasemin Sarar, a woman who has worked at the municipality for 25 years, explained that she leaves the house at 4:30 a.m. to travel for 240 kilometers to the workplace she has been assigned to. She gets home at 9:30 p.m.

"34 of our coworkers are continuing to live in exile like this," said Birgül. The women, she said, had met with mayor Menderes Türel, but with no result. Birgül called for an immediate end to the "assignment" policy at the municipality. Gülistan Atasoy, of the public workers union KESK, said the AKP mindset had ruled for 12 years through the politics of fear and repression.

"Women will not give permission and will not obey the sultanate of patriarchal men, from Tayyip Erdoğan to Menderes Türel," said Gülistan. The Antalya program continued with a panel on women and the city.

(cm/nt)