The struggle, life experience and the work we were involved in prior to becoming an association resulted in achievements and awareness on the sexual violence issue. We tried to cover a wide variety of subjects from street activism to self-help material, from society’s perception of sexual violence to the terminology produced, from forensic medicine reports stating “physical and psychological integrity has not been compromised” to sexual violence cases that drag on for years, and from the discourse of de facto abortion ban produced by high ranking politicians over survivor women, to rape crisis centers.
Our intentions in the long term:
• Organizing seminars, workshops and symposiums on basic concepts, myths and methods of struggle/fighting about sexual violence to reach the youth, adults, professionals, NGOs and schools and universities.
• To prompt institutions, organizations, universities and businesses into forming their own internal texts and mechanisms to prevent sexual violence and to support them.
• To work towards ensuring that legal, psychological, social and individual needs of harassment, rape and abuse survivors are met. Eg. forming networks, mapping support units and preparing, adapting and spreading self-help material and introductory fliers to increase awareness.
• To work towards prevention and reduction of non-punishment and injustice in sexual violence crimes. Eg. organizing discussions and panels, publicizing sexual violence trials and to endorse supporters, participate in and organize demonstrations.
• To prepare and spread protective and preventive content on child abuse. To organize workshops for children, parents and professionals who work with children.
• To make visible the lack of vital support units for sexual violence such as the non-existing “Rape Crisis Centers” in Turkey and to work on founding one.
• To establish an archive of statistics, campaigns, academic studies on the subject of sexual violence in Turkey. To provide a database for those looking to work in this field.
• Producing visual material, flyers, stickers, posters to break down and replace the maledominated perception, language and myths with one that empowers the survivors and to spread it through the media and social media to more people.
