For Women, by Women: Provision of Social Welfare Services in Turkey

• In Event: Politics Goes Local in the Middle East

Abstract

Charities and voluntary work have long been advocated by the IMF and the World Bank as remedies to the entrenchment of social welfare programs. Accordingly, countries are advised to encourage civil society organizations, particularly the faith-based ones, to provide services and the governments are encouraged to work closely work with them so that charities and volunteers fill the gaps created by the shrinking social services. This research project aims to examine the impacts of these recommended policies on the provision of social services to women in Turkey. This question is significant because women are disproportionately affected by poverty over the last decade. The services under examination are carried out to women by women volunteers. These women-to-women services have significantly increased recently because they are facilitated through government programs and the party organizations of the Justice and Development Party in power since 2002. The qualitative and quantitative data, collected during the fieldwork, are used to examine the trends that emerge over time. The paper argues that women-to-women provision of charity and voluntary-based social services fall short in providing universal and effective services. This type of social welfare provision means not only that the state subcontracts one of its main duties to women for free, but also it creates a discriminatory system because the provision of the services is carried out through selective and highly politicized networks.

Author

• Gamze Cavdar, Colorado State university