Equality experts to be hired in Parliament

ANKARA - Hürriyet Daily News

Turkish Parliament AA photo

Parliament’s Gender Equality Commission has taken an initiative to employ “equality experts” both at Parliament and at ministries in a bid to raise awareness on the issue.

The commission handed over their demands for such employment to Parliamentary Speaker Cemil Çiçek, Anatolia news agency reported Nov. 4.

At the moment, legislative experts and deputy experts are employed at Parliament.

According to the commission’s recent proposal, equality experts will track women’s employment and policies toward women at their workplaces, conduct studies for increasing women’s employment at the decision-making level and examine steps being taken to ensure gender equality. Equality experts are slated to be chosen from people who have already been working in the field and who know foreign languages.

Turkish Family and Social Policies Minister Fatma Şahin says recetly said discrimination against women is worse than racism. “We have attached the utmost importance to making sure that all citizens of the Turkish Republic equally benefit from their [rights of] citizenship regardless of their religion, language, gender or sect. This is how we see the women’s rights issue. This is how we have made our international strategies,” Şahin said. According to the World Economic Forum’s “Global Gender Gap Index 2012,” Turkey ranked 124th out of 135 countries in terms of its success to achieve sex equality.