Women's rights

The country’s leading business association, the Turkish Industry and Business Association (TÜSİAD), has changed its name in Turkish, heralding a step to end gender discrimination and enhance women empowerment.

A peaceful demonstration in support of the ratification of the so-called Istanbul Convention is being held on Thursday from 11 am to 2 pm before the National Assembly.

Thousands of mothers from all over Athens gathered at Syntagma Square on Sunday, November 5 to send a positive message about breastfeeding. Their goal was to raise awareness and encourage mothers to prefer the natural way of feeding their children and avoid formulas.

Egypt's National Council for Women's Rights (NCWR) is filing a report with the country's prosecutor-general following televised remarks made by a controversial lawyer who said it was "a national duty" to rape women who wear ripped jeans.

Main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) lawmaker Gülsün Bilgehan has criticized Turkey's record on women's rights with a report on the third anniversary of the Istanbul Convention. 

The Turkish government lacks the political will to implement the Istanbul Convention, the Council of Europe convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, even though Turkey was its first signatory state, according to a representative of a women's rights NGO.

In a bid to boost the practice of breastfeeding, the Health Ministry is introducing a measure whereby new mothers will have to sign a release form allowing their infants to be bottle-fed at maternity clinics.

The Minnesota Senate version of a bill passed by the Minnesota House that would punish parents who subjected their daughters to female genital mutilation (FGM) is stalling in the Senate because some members of Minnesota’s immigrant and refugee communities oppose it.

Saudi Arabia to give women more control over their life choices by relaxing male guardian system is welcomed as another small step for women in the kingdom.

Saudi Arabia is well known to be one of the world’s most gender-segregated nations, where women live under the supervision of a male guardian, cannot drive, and must wear head-to-toe black garments in public.

Greece's Supreme Court has ordered a probe into claims by a nongovernment organization that dozens of girls under the age of 15 living in migrant camps across the country have been subjected to clitoridectomy, a form of female genital mutilation.

The procedure is allegedly carried out by elderly women or unofficial imams in return for a fee.