THE Association of Turkish Women in Britain (BTKD) celebrated International Women’s day online. The event which was held over zoom saw members of BTKD as well as Turkey London Consul General Bekir Utku Atahan, Prof Çiğdem Balım, artist Nilay İşlek and musician Lara Melda Ömeroğlu join the event as guests.
BTKD President Servet Hassan highlighted the importance of “International Women’s Day”. Pianist Lara Melda performed two separate pieces from Chopin and gave a mini-concert to the audience.
Hassan thank members and guest for joining the event, she also was the moderator of the event, which held a series of conversations with the speakers about International Women’s Day and Turkish women.
Atahan said, “Today, up to 40 per cent of the employees in the [Turkey’s] Ministry of Foreign Affairs are women, we hope this will increase even more. The place the Turkish woman has reached today makes us all proud and happy. Undoubtedly, in this proud success of Turkish women lies the visionary, egalitarian perspective of the great leader Atatürk, who trusts and believes in Turkish women.”
Guest speaker Prof Balım, in her speech on the history of International Women’s Day, gave examples from various statistics about the position of women today. Balim said: “According to the reports of the United Nations, the rate of working women in the world is 50 per cent. Among the administrators, 28 per cent are women. 22 per cent of the parliamentarians are women. Every day, 137 women in the world are killed by their husbands, ex-wives, boyfriends or male relatives. According to a report published by the World Bank, only 6 countries Belgium, Denmark, France, Latvia, Luxembourg and Sweden treat women equally.
