Tatar praises female role models
PRESIDENT Ersin Tatar praised the role of women in society when he received a delegation from the Cyprus Turkish Women’s Union (KTKB) last Saturday.
KTKB leader Gülten Feridun and members of the organisation’s executive board visited Mr Tatar and First Lady Sibel Tatar for a “courtesy visit” to mark December 5 Women’s Rights Day, according to a statement from Mr Tatar’s office.
President Tatar paid tribute to the late spouse of former Turkish Cypriot leader Dr Fazıl Küçük, Süheyla Küçük, who died in June aged 95 and who served as the KTKB chair for many years.
He said that Turkish Cypriot women had taken on “many important roles throughout the years of struggle” and praised some of the first female teachers, including his grandmother Havva Tatar.
“Mothers and teachers are the people who implant inward values, family virtues, traditions and national spirit into children’s beings,” he said.
“Where there are women, there is success. Where women work, there is discipline, faith, happiness and productivity.”
THE world would be a better place if “absolute equality, rights and respect” existed between men and women, First Lady Sibel
Tatar said. In a message to mark December 5 Women’s Rights Day, Mrs Tatar said: “Published [in France] in 1791, the Declaration of the Rights of Women and Female Citizens starts with this sentence: ‘Women are born free and live their lives along with equal rights to that of men.’
“By nature, women’s rights found life due to the results of male hegemony. This thought highlights the struggle of women.
“Regardless of any subject in this globalised world, we can see that men and women are separate individuals but that it is important they work together.”
Women’s Rights Day was declared in Turkey to celebrate the date when Turkish women were given universal suffrage – December 5, 1934.