Tüpraş And Batman University Organized “16 Days Of Activism Against Gender Based Violence” Conference With The Participation Un Women
Batman University held a conference as part of 16 Days of activism against gender-based violence, which starts on November 25 and ends on December 10, Human Rights Day. The conference was held in cooperation with Tüpraş, the leading industrial corporation of Turkey and with UN Women.
Prof. Dr. İdris Demir, the Rector of Batman University, Assistant Professor Mehtap Nasıroğlu Aydın, the Director of Women and Family Studies Practice and Research Center, Zeliha Ünaldı, Programmes Manager at UN Women Türkiye, Sinem Aydın, HeForShe Project Coordinator at UN Women Türkiye, Pelin Kihtir, Sustainability and Stakeholder Relationships Manager at Koç Holding, and Çiler Teber, Corporate Communications Manager at Tüpraş took stage as speakers in the event, which was organized on December 5 in the Conference Hall of Central Campus of Batman University.
In his speech that started by memorializing women heroes of Turkish history starting from the Turkish War of Independence, namely Nene Hatun, Halime Çavuş, Fatma Refet Angın, and Sabiha Gökçen, Prof. Dr. İdris Demir, the Rector of Batman University, said, “Today our only agenda must be to discuss how we are going to raise the torch that they had fired to higher levels under the shadow of Anatolia, the almighty plane that such noble and self-sacrificing women had knit knot by knot and fed and raised.” Demir added, “We have never accepted and we will by no means accept violence against women. The women of the Anatolian land, our great plane tree, will always stand at the forefront with their nobility, elegance, virtue and knowledge. They will neither stay behind nor stay under the shadow of anyone else. Since we know that, any society that leaves their women behind is doomed to fall behind. We will strive to erase any kind of violence from this land and we will never compromise.
We want to show that a society and a world far from violence is possible
Assistant Professor Mehtap Nasıroğlu Aydın, Director of Women and Family Studies Practice and Research Center, stated in her opening speech that their main goal as the center is to increase social sensitivity and awareness, and they want to show that a society and a world far from violence can be possible. She added that, for this purpose, they are working together with national and international stakeholders.
Almost 4 out of 10 women subjected to physical violence in Turkey
UN Women Turkey, which drew attention to the violence of close partners against women with #SheSaidNo campaign this year, called the international society for action in order to prevent violence against women and girls for 16 days, between November 25 and December 10, the Human Rights Day. The aim is to raise awareness for the indicators and results of close partner violence with 16 Days of Activism campaign. Zeliha Ünaldı, Programmes Manager at UN Women Türkiye, said: “45.000 women and girls were murdered by their close partners or other family members in 2021 throughout the world. Close partners’ violence is one of the most common types of violence that women face all around the world. As UN Women Turkey, we aim to reach as many women, men, girls and boys as possible and carry on the spirit of ‘We are many, but united as one’ in order to prevent violence against women and to end discrimination. We need such unity and solidarity more than ever in these periods that we are shaken with crises.”
Women are 27 times more likely to be harassed online
Highlighting that the possibility of being exposed to online violence is 27 times more for women than men all around the world, Sinem Aydın, HeForShe Project Coordinator at UN Women Türkiye, said: “The violence against women occurs at home, on streets, at the workplace and, just as all other places, right here on digital platforms. When such events occur in digital environment, this does not reduce the severity of violence. Just like any other violence against women, the cyber violence is a violation of human rights and a crime.”
We can think of a future refined from violence as women and girls get stronger in technology and innovation and achieve economic freedom.
Pelin Kihtir, Sustainability and Stakeholder Relationships Manager at Koç Holding, said: “While digitalization is acting like a driving force in transformation of industries, it is possible to have an equal and fair transition period if women be a part of the solution and lead. As Koç Group, we are working to direct
We take bold steps in energy industry, which is predominantly male dominated, and each step we take gives us strength
Çiler Teber, Corporate Communications Manager at Tüpraş, said, “As a company believing that the professions do not have any gender, we implement many pioneering project with our motto ‘Our Endless Energy for Equality’. We are taking bold steps in energy industry, which is known to be predominantly male dominated, and we sincerely believe that each step we take will reach its prize. Women engineers take roles in all our refineries. We employ women technicians and operators in our production sites. We are among the first signatories of UN Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs) in Turkey. We aim to have one of each two recruitments would be women as of 2022. We aim to increase the ratio of women staff, which is currently 24 percent in Engineering, R&D, Innovation, Service Design and Information Technologies, to 40 percent in the next 5 years. We also formed our Diversity, Equality and Inclusiveness (DEI) Committee last year as another pioneering practice. We will set the bar higher with the DEI policy that we published.” Teber added, “We joined a global collaboration in 2018 together with HeforShe initiative, which was executed by Fenerbahçe Sports Club and UN Women. This synergy became the trigger of an important change and transformation in reaching more people in order for equality. We have completed many projects, including ‘Guide for Sports Organizations Sensitive to Social Gender’. We crown the sustainable development of our country in sports by supporting the raising of women and men national athletes in amateur branches in accordance with corporate social responsibility approach of Fenerbahçe Sports Club and Tüpraş.
Stating that Tüpraş has also developed Woman Program in Technology and Innovation in order to contribute to the commitments of Koç Holding in parallel with its global leadership in Generation Equality Forum of UN Women, Teber said, “We have undertaken to reach 100 thousand girl students in 5 years with different training projects that we will perform for this purpose. We will continue to work with our never ending energy to expand our impact area more with our valuable business partners, particularly with the support of the Rector of Batman University.”