Aylin Nazlıaka announces her candidacy again!

Republican People's Party (CHP) Women's Branches Chair Aylin Nazlıaka has announced that she is a candidate for the Women's Branches Chairmanship once again. Nazlıaka stated, "I am a candidate to defend the rights of our sisters who are murdered, harassed, and raped every day at home, at work, on the street, and on the bus. I am a candidate to put those who dictate to women how to dress, how to speak, how many children to have, and when to marry, and who assign us a passive role by telling us to 'obey and be comfortable,' in their place."

The CHP Women's Branches will hold its 15th Ordinary Congress on August 4, 2024. Current Women's Branches Chair and Deputy Chair Aylin Nazlıaka announced her candidacy for the presidency with a press statement made in front of the CHP Headquarters building. Nazlıaka was accompanied by provincial women's branch chairs. Nazlıaka said the following:

Since the first day I stepped into politics, I have believed and continue to believe in this: As our Founding Chair, our Eternal Leader Gazi Mustafa Kemal Atatürk pointed out, 'The one who loves their country the most is the one who does their duty the best.' We only need one thing: To be hardworking, to work. To work for our rights, our future, our country, the Republic, the people, and justice. Our path is not until we get tired, not to rest; it is to work to succeed, to win. To work to protect, develop, and grow what we have achieved. I have always existed by working throughout my life. Like everyone else, various obstacles have come my way from time to time. Like all my sisters, I have been tripped up from time to time. I have always overcome those obstacles by working. Whenever I fell, I got back up by working. I rose on my own two feet by working. And I have always believed in organized struggle and the power of solidarity. I have tried to give the strength I received from women back to women. I have always said this: None of us is as strong as all of us.

I started my political life in the women's branches. Like my sisters here, I took on many duties and responsibilities in our party by struggling. Currently, as the Women's Branches Chair and Shadow Minister responsible for Family and Social Services, I am deeply honored and proud to serve my country, my party, and my nation. Don't we always say in unison in the squares that we will win by working? Because we are members of a 100-year-old plane tree that renews itself, draws its strength from its history, and looks to the future with hope and courage. How happy we are to be CHP members. We have our roots in the past and our signature in the future. It is we who will build the new century with the legacy of the past. On this path we walk under the leadership of our Chair Özgür Özel with the slogan 'The century of change, the change of the century,' we are experiencing the justified pride and at the same time the great responsibility of being the first party in Turkey for the first time since 1977. We, the CHP women, continue to work to be the self-power and the leading power of the party that first won power locally and is now marching toward power in Turkey.

"WE LOVE OUR REPUBLIC UNCONDITIONALLY"

Four years ago, when we set out for the CHP Women's Branches Chairmanship, we started our march by saying, 'Quotas are too narrow for us, our route is power.' Now we are in a congress process again. Our district congresses started this month. Our provincial congresses will conclude in July, and we will hold our Grand Women's Branches Congress on August 4. When I announced my candidacy for the Women's Branches Chairmanship four years ago, I said: 'We are the laborers of this party. We love our party unconditionally. We love our country and our Republic unconditionally. We say that woman is the homeland of woman, and we love each other unconditionally because there is no 'I', there is 'we'. As long as there is 'we' instead of 'I', we will definitely succeed.' This 'state of being us, of being able to be together' that we achieved in those days was the harbinger of the spring we are experiencing in Turkey today. After taking office, we made our party the center of the women's struggle, which is the pioneer of social opposition in Turkey. We said, 'Woman is hope, struggle, equality, future, perseverance, and labor.' We said, 'Life is woman.' We said, 'Woman has transformative power, she is change itself.' With this understanding, we have achieved many successes.

"WE GAVE SCHOLARSHIPS TO CHILDREN"

We held simultaneous press statements in 81 provinces and 973 districts on average every month. We touched women's lives with our YaşamHak (LifeRight) project. We launched a struggle against violence against women—which I must break down as physical, sexual, economic, digital, and psychological violence—and femicides, which are among the most painful problems of our country. We implemented an article of the Istanbul Convention. And with the 'Alo Violence Line' 444 82 85, which operates 24/7 at our party headquarters, we supported all women victims of violence and abused children and their relatives who called the line. The slogan of our project is 'You are not alone, we are here.' We provided free legal and psychological support to our victimized friends, and we continue to do so. In order to increase the awareness of our project across the country and reach our sisters who are victims of violence, we went to 81 provinces with our YaşamHak bus and traveled enough distance to circle the world four times. In every province, every district, every town, every neighborhood, and every village we went to, we met with our sisters who were victims of violence. And we reached out to them. Within the scope of our project, we signed 120 protocol texts with bar associations and professional chambers. Thus, we were able to provide various opportunities such as housing and employment for women victims of violence, and scholarships for their children.

"WE ESTABLISHED YAŞAMHAK CONTAINERS IN 11 PROVINCES AFFECTED BY THE EARTHQUAKE"

We quickly identified needs in disaster areas and produced solutions with our organized power. We kept watch with our people during nature massacres and supported legal struggles. In order to grow the social struggle, we were the ones seeking rights wherever there was a violation of rights. We never left the side of the local people during the earthquake centered in Kahramanmaraş, which affected 11 provinces and was one of the greatest disasters in our country's history. I personally stayed in the earthquake zone for 41 days. I kept watch with those searching for their relatives under the rubble and shared the pain of those who lost their loved ones. We established YaşamHak containers in 11 provinces affected by the earthquake and met the special needs of women and children.

"WE ARE ORGANIZING THE STRUGGLE AGAINST OUR RIGHTS TARGETED BY THE 9TH JUDICIAL PACKAGE"

As CHP, our main goal is gender equality, full equality. We took a giant step in this regard and submitted our legislative proposal to the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, which envisages changes in the Law on Political Parties in order to ensure equal representation of women in politics. We stipulated that lists be made using the 'zipper method,' one woman and one man. Our proposal was rejected by the votes of AKP and MHP, but our justified and determined struggle on this issue continues. Today, half of the Central Executive Board appointed by our Chair also consists of women. We prepared for general and local elections with our strategic programs and plans. If we elected female members of parliament in 2 of the 20 provinces where no female member of parliament had ever been elected in our country's history, if we quadrupled the number of CHP female mayors and female municipal council members, and if we painted Turkey red, the determined, organized, and coordinated work we carried out as the Women's Branches has a large share in this success of our party. During this period, we produced mayors, members of parliament, and provincial and district chairs from the CHP Women's Branches. Is it enough? It is not. Our goal is clear: Full equality. We have bonded tightly with the women's movement in the world and in Turkey. Just as we stood by the Istanbul Convention, we stood and continue to stand with the same determination by Law No. 6284, which is being tried to be pruned, and the Civil Code, which is being tried to be rewritten from scratch. Now, we are organizing the struggle against our rights targeted by the 9th Judicial Package and the usurpation of our right to use our surnames. We will never, ever allow these rights to be taken from us.

SPOKE ABOUT THE WOMEN'S VOLLEYBALL TEAM

Our athletes who make us proud with their successes and prove to the whole world that the women of this country can achieve anything... Our A National Women's Volleyball Team carried our flag to the highest point with the victories they achieved. How beautifully our national player İlkin Aydın said: 'We call them the Sultans of the Net, but I like calling them Atatürk's Daughters better.' These female athletes of ours, who are our pride, continue to struggle without ever giving up, getting tired, or quitting, despite all kinds of blackout, marginalization, and ignoring efforts by some. I would like to thank each of them once again from the bottom of my heart, not only for the matches they won and the cups they lifted, but also for being a light to our children's dreams. I also condemn once again those who forced our women's volleyball team, which has managed to be the best in the world, to travel on scheduled flights to the tournament they will participate in to represent our country. We will never forget this discrimination, this marginalization, and when the day comes, we will definitely hold them accountable.

I tried to briefly summarize what we have done during my 4-year term. We tried to do justice to every day and every minute we were in office. From now on, we will continue to do what we know best; that is, to work, toward the goal pointed out by Gazi Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, for the construction of a secular, democratic, and modern Turkey. What's next? There is bringing the 'equal representation and zipper system' that we prepared with the contribution of Women's Non-Governmental Organizations to our party. There is strengthening our women's branches even more. There is increasing our number of female members to 1 million. There is establishing 'Housewives Committees' in every province and district and ensuring that one out of every two housewives votes for our party. There is spreading the egalitarian policies of our party and our municipalities to all of Turkey. There is standing by the Civil Code in order for women and men to have equal rights in social, cultural, economic, and political life. There is wiping those who say 'We will rewrite the Civil Code from scratch' from the political scene. There is growing the women's struggle against those who try to change Law No. 6284 on the Protection of Family and Prevention of Violence Against Women. There is saying 'Know your place' to those who want to open the way for objections to the coercive imprisonment given to stop the perpetrator of violence. There is growing the struggle with women's organizations across the country against the regulations in the 9th Judicial Package that usurp our rights. There is not allowing Law No. 6284 to be rendered dysfunctional while women are being murdered while they have protection orders in their bags. There is standing by the right to use a woman's surname. There is taking sides with democracy against the suspension of democracy under the name of 'influence agency.' There is continuing to expose the sentence reductions given in court just because the perpetrator wore a tie and stood politely, and to carry judicial decisions to the higher court. There is continuing the struggle to stop femicides against the attempts to hide femicides under the name of 'suspicious death' and looking at femicides only as a 'number'.

''THERE IS NOT MANAGING POVERTY, BUT ENDING IT''

There is struggling with the mentality that condemns women to a spiral of violence, and supporting more victims with our YaşamHak project. Instead of encouraging women to have a profession and participate in employment, there is standing tall against the mentality that presents motherhood as the greatest career and increasing women's employment. There is breaking gender codes against those who say 'Isn't housework enough?' and those who separate professions as men's and women's jobs, and encouraging women's employment in every field through our municipalities working with female bus drivers, female firefighters, and female tram drivers. There is putting an end to children being kept away from school with the practice implemented by the AKP government that 'students who get married or engaged have their ties with formal education severed and are directed to open education.' There is continuing to stand tall against those who prepare a legal cover for early and forced marriages. There is destroying the understanding that effectively lowers compulsory education and hands children over to religious sects with the article 'education can be interrupted for memorization training after primary school' which came into effect with the 4+4+4 freak system. There is putting an end to the rule of those who shamelessly talk about 'the child's consent' in child abuse cases. There is abolishing the regulation that came into effect with the Secondary Education Institutions Regulation in 2018, which allows for the absence of co-education in high schools through the change they made via Multi-Program Anatolian High Schools. There is establishing a secular, equal, fair, free, democratic, and well-fed Turkey for everyone. There is not managing poverty, but ending it. Now it's time to carry the CHP to power.

"I AM A CANDIDATE TO TAKE BACK GAINED RIGHTS"

When we come to power, the first thing to do is to put the Istanbul Convention back into effect. I am a candidate for the women's branches chairmanship again for equality, democracy, and secularism, to grow the struggle for women's human rights, to carry the struggle forward together, hand in hand, arm in arm, heart to heart, and to make our Party, founded by our eternal leader Gazi Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the ruling power. I am a candidate for the rights of our sisters who work or are made to work without insurance and without security to bring bread to their homes and cover their children's school expenses; for their faces that have forgotten how to smile. I am a candidate for domestic workers, textile workers, and agricultural workers. I am a candidate for women who are mobbed in the companies they work for, who hit the glass ceiling, and who do not receive equal pay for equal work. I am a candidate for young people who have to walk home helplessly from job queues every day with their diplomas in their hands. I am a candidate for the power of invisible labor. I am a candidate to defend the gained rights of women who are seen as the second sex rather than one of the two sexes in this country; to take back our usurped rights by force. I am a candidate to defend the rights of our sisters who are murdered, harassed, and raped every day at home, at work, on the street, and on the bus. I am a candidate to put those who dictate to women how to dress, how to speak, how many children to have, and when to marry, and who assign us a passive role by telling us to 'obey and be comfortable,' in their place.''