‘New female MPs should support women’s causes’
NEWLY elected female MPs should use their position of power to press for the establishment of state-run shelters and other forms of support for victims of domestic violence, a women’s rights campaigner has said.
Cansu Nazlı, a lawyer at the Women’s Education Collective, said the election of a record nine female deputies to the 50-seat Parliament had given her “hope” that efforts to tackle abuse in the home would be given a boost.
The TRNC currently has just one refuge for battered women, which is run by Lefkoşa Turkish Municipality.
Five women died at the hands of their partners in 2017, making it the worst year of the last decade for such deaths. Figures from the last 10 years show that 2009 was the only year in North Cyprus when no women were murdered by their husbands or boyfriends. Some other deaths recorded as suicides are also believed by experts to have been preceded by many years of abuse.
Speaking to Cyprus Today’s sister newspaper Kıbrıs, Ms Nazlı said state-run shelters should be provided in every region of the country.
“It is important that women have a say over their labour, body and identity,” she said. “Policies could be finalised or implemented by the women who have made it into Parliament, together with their male colleagues.”
Under amendments to the Family Act, women who are victims of domestic violence with an income of up to one-and-a-half times the minimum wage are entitled to state legal aid in order to apply for a court protection order.
However, it is currently not possible for women to do so because a body tasked with administering the aid, the Family Support Board, has yet to be established.
Ms Nazlı said the lack of women’s refuges and financial support meant many victims had no choice but to continue living in the same home as their abusers.
“The elected women MPs will be able to contribute to the expansion of women’s politics as long as they serve the emancipation of women, labour and nature,” Ms Nazlı continued.
She called on the nine female MPs to take “preventative and protective measures against violence against women” and to “oppose conservatism” and support the “unionisation of the private sector”.