Equality is a founding principle of a democratic society and of a fair understanding of public service. Yet genuine equality is achieved not merely by offering everyone the same service, but by ensuring that everyone — with their different needs, identities, and experiences — can actually and equally access those services. Even when a service is “open to all” on paper, if it remains inaccessible to vulnerable groups, particularly women, because of language, ethnic identity, class, or cultural position, formal equality turns into de facto inequality. It is precisely at this point that equality must be transformed from an abstract principle into a concrete guarantee through which every woman can access her rights within her own reality.
Women face an intersecting experience of discrimination in which, within the patriarchal order, inequalities operate together not only on the basis of sex but also on the basis of ethnic identity, native language, migration status, and socioeconomic position. Women whose native language is Kurdish and who are subjected to violence experience both gender inequality and language-based exclusion at the same time; this leaves them facing a layered discrimination that cannot be attributed to a single cause. An approach that ignores these differences and treats offering everyone the same service as equality in fact deepens existing inequalities rather than remedying them. Genuine equality is only possible by making visible women’s differing needs and experiences, and by removing the barriers to access — above all barriers related to native language — so that every woman can reach services on her own terms.
With this understanding, Kadın Zamanı Derneği continues its work as a space of solidarity where women subjected to gender-based violence, or who witness violence, can safely apply for and receive information and support. Guided by a feminist approach, we place women’s empowerment, agency, and equal access to rights at the center of our work, and we regard combating discrimination in all its forms as a core responsibility.
This report, prepared as part of the monitoring study we carried out with the support of the European Endowment for Democracy (EED), examines how Istanbul’s municipalities address multilingualism in their services for women, and in particular the current state of access to Kurdish-language services in cases of violence. Our aim is to make visible the structural and institutional barriers to native-language access, and thereby make the fight against discrimination an integral part of local government policy. We hope that this study will contribute to strengthening women’s access to services in their native language and to a more equitable understanding of public service.