Kurdish speakers sidelined by Turkey’s new app to combat violence against women

ISTANBUL, Turkey — Turkey has created an application designed to combat violence against women in Turkey. However, of the six languages it provides assistance in, Kurdish is not one of them.

The country’s police launched Siddet this week on International Women Day, allowing individuals in need to quickly access police services. However, the exclusion of the country’s Kurdish-speaking population has angered many.

“The tenth article of the constitution begins with equality. Those who govern the country must act in accordance with this article and be united against all kinds of discrimination,” Nuray Karaoglu, the president of KADER, a women rights organization in Istanbul.

On social media platforms, including Twitter, Tens of thousands of people have used the hashtag #Kurdish to protest the act of exclusion.

They slammed the Turkish government for its continued discriminatory acts against Kurds in the country who make up 15 to 20 percent of the entire population.

“Languages need to be studied in schools,” Semra Guzel, member of Turkish parliament from Kurdish-led People's Democratic Party (HDP), told Rudaw. “Kurdish needs to become an official language.”

Seval Gulmezm, a Kurdish resident of Istanbul, spoke to Rudaw of the marginalization of Kurdish.

“They do not want us to speak in Kurmanji [a Kurdish dialect]. They say our language does not exist and you cannot see it. Whether you want it or not, our language exists,” said Gulmezm. “|You add Russian, you add English to it, but not Kurdish,” she said of the app.

Turkish is the country’s only constitutionally recognized language. It is the language of employment, education, and used at all public institutions.

Kurdish has been silenced in modern Turkey since its foundation in 1923, due to the oppressive assimilation policies of successive governments.

A 2019 study shows that only a small number of Turkey’s Kurdish population can speak Kurdish.

Reporting by Rawin Sterk