OBOS Translations: Turkey

Why on Earth a Turkish Adaptation of Our Bodies, Ourselves?! Let me explain...

Women’s Status in Turkey
Some Official Numbers:

• 32% of Turkey’s population is under the age of 15.
• 71 years is the average life expectancy at birth for a female.
• 15% of women between the ages of 15 and 19 are married.
• The average age at which a woman marries is 19.5.
• Childbearing in Turkey is concentrated in the age group of 15-29.
• 24% of women are illiterate; 50% have a primary school education; 12% have a middle school education; 12% have a high school education; 1.5% have a university education.
• For every 100 boys who continue on to middle school, only 62 girls do.
• 33% of women are paid laborers. 80% of these work in agriculture; 13% in services sector; 7% in industry.
• 49% of women use tobacco products.
• The average birth rate for a woman in Turkey is 2.6.
• 77% of child births are assisted by health personnel.
• Every year, 1,500 women lose their lives due to health problems during pregnancy, childbearing, and the postpartum period.
• 27% of married women have had at least one induced abortion.
• 40% of births that have happened in the last 5 years were unplanned or unwanted.
• 66.4% of married women do not want any more children.
• 24.4% of married women use coitus interruptus as their primary method of contraception.
• Use of contraceptive methods has been legal since 1965.
• 64% of women use contraceptive methods; however, approximately half of those use methods that are traditional (i.e., coitus interruptus, soap suppositories, etc.) rather than medical (i.e., IUD, OC, condoms, injection, etc.).
• 7% of married couples use condoms as a contraceptive method and most women who are infected with STD’s are infected by their husbands.
• Only 11% of married women know when they are most fertile during their menstrual cycle.
• 29.3% of pregnant women get their tetanus toxoid injections.
• Among reasons for divorce, 72% claimed aggressive behavior, including beating; 16% female infertility; 11% male infertility.

The State of Women’s Health in Turkey
Some Notes from the Field I:

• There is no reproductive and/or sexual education at any school level.
• The primary sources of information about the above are friends, followed by older relatives, mother, media.
• Generally, women do not know what their reproductive organs are.
• Most women believe that their hymen is completely closed.
• It is widely believed that athletic activity damages the hymen.
• It is customary for a woman to slap her daughter when she has her first menstruation.
• Nearly all women refer to menstruating as an ‘illness’ or ‘becoming dirty.’
• Many traditional and religious practices lead to women developing Pelvic inflammatory diseases (PID).
• The majority of women believe that vaginal discharge is normal.
• Friendships between boys and girls are traditionally frowned upon and hindered by society.
• Elders put pressure upon newlyweds to have children as soon as possible and if they fail to do so in a short time, rumors that they are infertile quickly begin to be spread, in which case they are forced to ‘prove’ that this is not the case.
• Women often continue giving birth until they finally have a boy.
• The great majority of women do not benefit from medical assistance during menopause.
• For most women, menopause means that they have lost their feminine identity.
• The most frequently occurring post-menopause illnesses among women are vascular, cardiac, and bone diseases.
• Since 1983, all women over the age of 18 have had the right to have a legal abortion.
• However, despite this legal right, most health units refuse to carry out abortions on single women or married women who do not provide authorized documentation from their husbands.
• Most women who are victims of domestic violence blame themselves.
• When a woman goes to her family in seek of refuge from domestic violence, she is usually sent back to the husband.
• Women still do not have the right to good health; neither according to law nor according to themselves or society do they possess this right.

Who’s Doing What About Women’s Health in Turkey?

• Official institutions aim for status quo in women’s health (i.e., reduce number of births, etc.) only, not for progressive change.
• The limited number of NGO’s working in the field of women’s health tend to share the above perspective.
• Women’s groups in Turkey tend to focus their energies on areas other than women’s health, largely because women’s health is not considered ‘to be political.’

Why Women’s Health?

1. Our interest and experience is in the field of women and women’s health.
2. Women’s health is a criterion that effects every other aspect of their lives.
3. As women’s knowledge of their bodies and their selves increases, so too the potential for change, both for themselves as well as the world around them.
4. In Turkey, women need and want information about their bodies and health.

Why a Book?

1. To bring all of our knowledge about women’s health together in one source.
2. Younger women are more prone to reading than previous generations.
3. To make this information immediately accessible to literate women.
4. To be able to reach out to as many women as possible at once with a resource that is a permanent reference.

Why Our Bodies, Ourselves?

1. In Turkish, there is no volume that brings together information about all aspects of women’s health.
2. Books about women’s health are not woman-positive and/or designed to be used by women.
3. Of all the books we have looked at, OBOS is the one volume that provides a model that fills the above needs.

We want women to say... “I read a book, and it changed my life!”

Find out more about the status of the Turkish adaptation
Find out more about the OBOS Translation/Adaptation Program