WUNRN
TURKEY - BABY BRIDES PROJECT AGAINST
EARLY & FORCED MARRIAGES
Destructive Traditions & Social
Patriarchal Heritage
By - 09 July 2010
The Baby Brides project will be conducted in 54 different cities throughout Turkey by Flying Broom, with the financial support of the Sabancı Foundation. Having started in April 15, 2010 the project will be finalized in October 15, 2011.
The priorities set out by Flying Broom in this project is to bring forward the issue of early and forced marriages, mold public opinion, and set concerning persons, institutions and organizations into motion in order to come up with alternative solutions to this social problem, starting on the local level in 54 cities (Afyonkarahisar, Ağrı, Aksaray, Amasya, Ankara, Ardahan, Artvin, Aydın, Balıkesir, Bilecik, Bingöl, Bitlis, Bolu, Bursa, Çankırı, Çorum, Diyarbakır, Düzce, Edirne, Elazığ, Erzincan, Eskişehir, Giresun, Gümüşhane, Hakkari, Iğdır, İzmir, Kastamonu, Kayseri, Kırıkkale, Kırklareli, Kırşehir, Kocaeli, Kütahya, Malatya, Mardin, Muş, Nevşehir, Niğde, Ordu, Osmaniye, Rize, Sakarya, Siirt, Sinop, Şırnak, Tekirdağ, Tokat, Trabzon, Tunceli, Uşak, Van, Yozgat, Zonguldak).
Film screenings and seminars will take place in line with the project. Two short, fictional silent movies about early and forced marriages from the Flying Broom will run during these events, which will be followed by interviews with the participation of women of all ages. After these interviews psychologists, lawyers, doctors and/or sociologists will gather to share their knowledge on the subject in several seminars. The purpose of these is to acquaint decision-makers and implementers about the problems and demands of women, thus to find a solution to a social problem through citizen-community communication channels.
The interviews where women will voice their testimonies and experiences will be published in a book at the end of the project. Interviews, testimonies, experiences of the project team and the knowledge/information acquired meanwhile will also be included in this book.
The project also aims to prepare a documentary with the use the video and photo shoots taken during the events. With special emphasis on the negative impacts of early and forced marriages on the psychological and physical welfare of women and the fortifying effect of it on social justice and gender equality constraints, a media campaign will be initiated within the scope of the project in order to raise awareness regarding the violation of human rights of women. Petition signatures collected during the film screenings and at meetings in different cities will serve to convey messages and demands regarding the matter to the whole community, and especially to lawmakers and decision makers. The signatures will be handed to the Grand National Assembly of Turkey at the end of the project.
One of the most important works of the project will be to conduct field studies in the previously determined 10 cities out of the 54. This study, which will be assisted by universities, will also contribute to collect data on early and forced marriages.
Having integrated the need to work on early and forced marriages into its institutional capacity, mission and vision, the Flying Broom initiated a research project, entitled "Early Marriages" in 2006 and a short movie project, entitled "Baby Brides" in 2008. Flying Broom, which touches on early and forced marriages not only with its projects but also with other social and cultural studies, is persistent on keeping the matter as a part of its agenda and also on bringing it up to the national agenda. It, therefore, advocates the political and strategic importance of the support of the Presidency. Flying Broom has decided to organize special film screenings of the two short movies shot during the "Baby Brides" project, specifically for women from all around the country, which has been supported by the Presidency with a letter that called for the collaboration of governorships and municipalities. This moral support is important, seeing as it gives hope that with the adoption of the problem at hand by the seniors in the government, solution oriented efforts can accelerate, and as it shows that an effective and permanent solution can be achieved with the collaboration of institutions and organizations.
This project intends to contribute to finding concrete and permanent solutions to the problem by taking the knowledge and experiences in the field one step further. It also proposes to achieve collaboration among law-makers, organizations of women, children and human rights, universities, international community, education, health and business circles as well as other bodies that shape public policies in their respective ways, for women who are deprived of educational and employment opportunities and who can't participate in the social life for having to marry at an early age, and for girls who are under the threat of early and/or forced marriages. It, at the same time aims to bring forward up-to-date data as a part of the solution due to lack of statistics and independent research data on early and forced marriages. Students and academicians from the departments of women and gender studies and sociology are projected to actively take part in the field studies to be conducted as a part of the project. It focuses on how girls, who are forced to live a life they didn't choose and to embrace a life in which the body, identity and efforts are not of their own, can be strengthened.
Awareness raising for the target group, the majority of which consists of families, primary school teachers, religious officials and opinion leaders, will be made possible with communication activities, a field in which the Flying Broom considers itself to be competent. Other target groups of the project are local authorities and the local affiliations of public administrations. The project thus aims to make it clear that early and forced marriages are not only the problem of women, but also the problem of the society as a whole, and that active public policies are of grave importance in finding a solution to this problem.
Early marriages, which are mostly forced, meaning done without the consent of the woman, is an important focus of a social problem. It's a problem with complex and multidimensional causes and consequences, from which thousands of women suffer each year in Turkey, as do many other women around the globe.
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