ISTANBUL - Gökçe Korkmaz from Women Strong Together pointed out that the government wants to confine women to their homes and usurp their freedom and social rights with the "Action Plan for the Protection and Strengthening of the Family".

 

The "Vision Document and Action Plan for the Protection and Strengthening of the Family" prepared by the Ministry of Family and Social Services was created within the framework of a 4-year program. Within the scope of the plan, the "Family Protection and Strengthening Board" was established. Previously, "family" workshops were organized by the ministry in 81 provinces. While AKP aims to make divorce more difficult with these policies, it has discussed women's gains, especially the right to "maintanence".

 

Women raise their voices wherever they are against these policies of the government. Women Strong Together (KBG) launched a campaign in November 2023 with the slogan "Our lives do not fit into your family". KBG member Gökçe Korkmaz made evaluations about the "family" policies of the government and the campaign they carried out.

 

5 STRATEGIC GOALS

 

Stating that 5 strategic goals were defined in the plan prepared by the government, Korkmaz stated that the first of these is "protecting the family against global risks and demographic transformation". Stating that women are encouraged to both marry and have children with this article, "On the one hand, with the change in the curriculum, they are trying to raise a spiteful and religious generation through family culture in the education system, as an important part of strengthening the family" Korkmaz said.

 

Stating that the second goal is stated as "increasing the welfare level of families", she said: "They talk about harmonizing work and family life. But we know what this means; they want women to have cheap labor and to be in a system of labor exploitation that is many times more. The third aim is to 'increase the effectiveness of family-oriented social policies and services'. This has always been the fundamental policy of the AKP. It is the government's way of counting women as social rights and saying, 'You will either be a wife or a mother, we do not give you any social rights other than that." 

 

'THE GOVERNMENT WILL PUMP ITS THE IDEOLOGY'

 

Stating that the fourth goal is “supporting the family in the digitalization process”, Korkmaz said: “We have been experiencing censorship on the media for years. On the other hand, the media is an area where the government pumps its own ideology and states that it will continue to do so. Noting that the fifth goal is "increasing the resilience of families to disasters and emergencies through family-sensitive environmental policies", in this policy they are talking about family-oriented spatial planning in disasters. All social housing projects involve capital owners adding property to themselves and transferring wealth; It consists of dispossession projects for earthquake victims who lost their homes, shelters, families, children and friends. They plundered nature in the earthquake zone and established a system according to their own interests; They started to build social housing projects. However, tens of thousands of people are still living in containers and tents.”

 

'WE SAID OUR LIVES CANNOT FIT IN YOUR 'FAMILY'

 

Stating that the AKP government has always centered the policies that impose "family" and that the family has been a very important part of the whole system since the history of patriarchy, "Family means male violence, family means exploitation of women's labor, raising hetero people who will establish other families, many states It means pumping up its ideology. We said, 'Our lives do not fit into your family' in response to these recent family marches, the gradual withdrawal of social rights, the definition of women entirely through the family, the increase in male violence and femicide, the increase in attacks and the defense of this by the state. Once again, they define women through family; We tried to organize something to prevent them from destroying our entire life, our purpose and our desires" Korkmaz said.

 

'WE WILL CONTINUE TO FIGHT'

 

Stating that they organized demonstrations in places where women were murdered within the scope of the campaign and organized panels under various titles, Korkmaz continued her words as follows: “We will continue to fight against these policies of the government. We will continue to reveal what kind of male violence and murder took place within that family they blessed, how our freedom was restricted, and with what ideologies and resources this was defended. As women and queers, we will always continue to defend the different friendships and comrades that we can establish in our own lives, not through family but through our own independence and freedom. The feminist struggle and the women's movement are a part of this, and the campaign is a stop of this."