Scribes to help prevent forced marriages of girls

The media has a very important role to play in raising awareness about the serious issue of "early and forced marriages," in Turkey, according to one of the most influential and powerful women in Turkish media.

Vuslat Doğan Sabancı, CEO of the Hürriyet daily, hosted a panel on "forced marriage," at Hürriyet headquarters yesterday. She introduced the discussion, stating that there was an ongoing gender inequality issue in Turkey, where a large percentage of women were dominated by men and given a much lower standard of life as a result.

"One of the most disturbing problems we are faced with is young women, under 18, forced into marriage with older men," Said Sabanci, adding that Hürriyet, as a newspaper that supported democracy had a responsibility to raise awareness and fight against this injustice to make Turkey a modern country that gave equal rights to women.

At the opening of the panel, two vivid silent films were shown from the "baby bride project." The aim of the films, devised by the Flying Broom and International Women’s Film Festival organizations, is to alert the audience to the disturbing reality of underage marriage. The non-dialogue films work to overcome limits posed by language in cinema, they also highlight the fact that women forced into early marriages do not have a voice to speak out.

The Flying Broom is a women’s organization that works for the improvement of democracy and civil society in Turkey. Its aims are to enhance gender equality consciousness, provide training to empower women and contribute to the development of policies to ensure equality for women.

Psychological effects
Forced underage marriage has many physical and psychological effects on young people. The developing bodies of young girls cannot cope with the strains and pressures married life imposes on them and therefore they have problems when giving birth and carrying out normal daily routines. The lack of education they receive puts them in a vulnerable position in society, where they are unable to develop a voice of expression, according to the renowned psychologist Feride Yıldırım, another speaker on the panel.

Celebrity, Hülya Avsar, who also spoke at the panel, stressed her frustrations with such panels, complaining that people always came together to talk about the problems but results were never achieved.

" I believe, however that this panel is different’ said Avsar adding that she believed in the power of Hürriyet to raise awareness and have an impact upon political parties to make reforms to prevent these issues.

Flying Broom is currently organizing its International Women’s Film Festival for 2009. The Women’s film festival is the first of its kind in Turkey and aims to support women’s issue. In addition Flying Broom is continuing to work with Turkish media to disseminate local news from all regions to the public through their Local Women’s reporters Network.