KEİG Platform attended the annual conference held in Berlin by the International Association of Feminist Economists.
The 24th of the annual conference organized by the International Association of Feminist Economists founded in 1992 by feminists, which is organized in a different country each year, was held in Berlin School of Economics and Law on July 16-18 this year.
Apart from simultaneous sessions about social entrepreneurship with a perspective of gender within the fields of macroeconomy and development, women’s labor in agriculture, flexible working, motherhood, domestic labor, labor policies, austerity measures of governments, gender-based discrimination in work life, gender-sensitive budgeting, globalization, migration, building feminist organizations, and women’s employment, congregate sessions were also held.
Women and labor in Turkey
A session with participants from Turkey was held in this year’s conference. On the first day of the conference, Şemsa Özar moderated the session titled Women and Labor in Turkey. Meltem Arıoğlu Pultar drew attention to the points where KEİG is different in its organizational model by explaining KEİG and its activities in her presentation titled KEİG as an Example of Feminist Activism in Turkey. KEİG’s collaboration with national and international organizations, KEİG Newsletter and website as a collective work, visibility on social media, campaigning, and creation and dissemination of knowledge by organization and publication reports were presented as the best practices of KEİG.
In addition to the best practices, the difficulties and obstacles that KEİG experiences, especially the attitude of the government and the indifference of media were discussed. Examples about KEİG becoming an important actor by activism, feminist achievements, inclusion of KEİG’s policies in the development policies, utilization of KEİG’s work in parliamentary questions for circulars of Prime Ministerial Office, participation in strategic planning activities of municipalities, production and dissemination of information with research reports were given.
Zeynep Ceren Eren made a presentation about the Kindergarten is a Right Platform which was created with the call of KEİG in 2011 and still continues its activities. The presentation summarized the activities conducted by women in neighborhoods and municipalities in 15 provinces by KEİG-member women’s associations.
Also, Yelda Yücel made a presentation about “decent work” in Turkey and various research she conducted with Özge İzdeş in this session. The presentation summarized international work from different perspectives and the definition of decent work in manufacturing and industry was discussed. The study showed that there are similarities and differences in various sectors in terms of gender equality and it was remarked that the next step is to create an index for decent work and compare sectors. Özgün Biçer evaluated policies regarding women’s employment and vocational training in Turkey with a perspective of empowerment of women.
Şemsa Özar was elected the president of IAFFEE for the new term.
Prof. Şemsa Özar was elected for the president of International Association of Feminist Economists for 2015-2016 term. Şemsa Özar, one of the founding members of KEİG platform and a member of Feminist Researchers Studying Women’s Labor (KEFA), was a vice president in the International Association of Feminist Economists.
At the end of the conference, a statement about Greek debt crisis was signed by about 150 participants and shared.
