UN Women Organized Provincial Action Plans Workshop on Combating Early and Forced Marriages

The Workshop on Supporting Provincial Action Plans to Combat Early and Forced Marriages, organized by UN Women, was held for 3 days with more than 100 participants from 27 provinces.

In her opening speech, Minister of Family and Social Services, Mahinur Özdemir Göktaş said, "We believe that the only environment where girls and boys can be happy is with their families and in schools. As adults, it is our main duty to ensure that they live their childhood in the most beautiful way." Minister Özdemir stated that they are working with the principle of "zero tolerance" in combating early and forced marriages and that they have started to implement provincial action plans in 25 provinces. She emphasized that these action plans are an important step towards raising social awareness on early and forced marriages.

UN Women Türkiye Country Director Asya Varbanova stated that early and forced marriages are a form of violence against women and a violation of human rights and that these marriages have negative effects on women and girls. Varbanova stated that early and forced marriages increase the risk of child abuse, prevent access to education and negatively affect physical and mental health. She stated that UN Women, in cooperation with the Ministry of Family and Social Services, continues to work towards the elimination of early and forced marriages and emphasized that they will continue this effort.

In 2022, in line with one of the objectives of Türkiye's 4th National Action Plan on Combating Violence against Women (2021-2025), the Ministry of Family and Social Services prepared comprehensive, evidence-based and needs-based local action plans against early and forced marriages for the period 2023-2025. In addition, cooperation between public institutions, reports and scientific research were conducted to eliminate early and forced marriages. Following the earthquakes, 6 earthquake provinces were added to the 21 provincial action plans.

The workshop held on September 4-6, 2023 aimed to develop and revise the Action Plans of 27 provinces, taking into account the risks that may occur during natural disasters. During the workshop, participants shared their experiences on the Provincial Action Plans on Combating Early and Forced Marriage and increased their knowledge on the implementation and monitoring of the action plans.

Combating early and forced marriages continues to be among the most important goals of the cooperation between UN Women and the Ministry of Family and Social Services.