EMPOWERING WOMEN THROUGH CO-OPERATIVES AND ADDING STRENGTH TO THE ECONOMY
(EXECUTIVE SUMMARY)
The role of cooperatives in women's empowerment has become an important focus in Turkey for the last 10 years, similar to the trend all over the world.
Supporting Women's Cooperatives
They participate in public life,
They earn their own income,
They can receive training and consultancy tailored to their needs
As an organizational model that enables various activities to be carried out together, cooperatives are supported by relevant stakeholders.
In this context;
Policy frameworks are being created at both international and national levels for the support of women's cooperatives, and research is being conducted.
Intense efforts are being made to ensure that women's cooperatives can continue their existence strongly through education, communication networks and platforms.
In Turkey, the issue of women's empowerment through cooperatives is mostly addressed within the scope of "women's cooperatives" established by women and whose partners are all women.
Common Profile of Women's Cooperatives
They are mostly middle-aged, have a low level of education, the care burden in the household is relatively light,
No previous working experience,
It consists of women who carry out home-based production, service and care activities within the framework of a cooperative in line with traditional gender roles.
Problems Encountered by Women's Cooperatives in terms of Organizational, Financial, Structural and Legal
The main organizational problems are that the cooperative awareness of women who find themselves in the cooperative organization model for the first time is not developed and that there is no full consensus on cooperative values among the partners.
However, if the limits of the support provided by women's organizations and/or local governments, which play an active role in the establishment and sustainability of women's cooperatives, are not well managed by all parties, the qualities of autonomy and independence, which are the basic principles of cooperatives, may be damaged.
On the other hand, the financial problems faced by women's cooperatives in Turkey arise from the fact that these cooperatives are businesses where small-scale production often varies according to various periods and seasons.
Financing opportunities to ensure financial sustainability of women's cooperatives, whose partners have low capital and do not have a good command of market conditions, are limited.
The structural and legal problems of women's cooperatives are generally related to the elements that need to be improved in the general cooperative system in Turkey, especially in the field of legislation. However, when the unique organizational and financial problems of women's cooperatives combine with the structural/legal problems arising from the entire cooperative system, the impact of the results can be felt more severely by women partners.
Problems Directly Related to Legislation for Women's Cooperatives
Imposition of legal obligations on cooperatives as great as companies'',
Cooperatives are subject to a uniform regulation, regardless of their scale (small and large scale), purpose (priority of social or commercial purpose) and type (worker, consumer, building cooperative).''
Strategy to be Followed through Legislation in Solving Organizational, Financial/Structural Problems.
The strategy is a preliminary cooperative model that women who have not yet reached the qualification to become a cooperative but have applied for a cooperative will run until they become sustainable cooperatives with intensive training and consultancy support during the process.
The strategy is a simplified cooperative legislation that provides various supports and exemptions for small-scale cooperatives.
The strategy includes defining worker cooperatives and social cooperative statuses as separate cooperative types in the legislation and ensuring that women's cooperatives whose activities comply with the cooperative models in question can benefit from the opportunities and conveniences brought by the relevant legislation.
Strategy; It can be expressed as the realization of the gender equality/balance criterion that will increase the representation and activities of women as management, partners and employees through incentive policies that provide additional advantages for cooperatives in order to empower women as partners in all cooperatives, regardless of the cooperative type.
Apart from these strategies suggested to be followed for the legislation, it is recommended to work on solutions related to the development of the institutional system of cooperatives, based on the measures in the Ministry of Commerce Cooperative Strategy and Action Plan.
Strengthening the Integration of Women's Cooperatives with the Existing Cooperative System
It is aimed to develop their capacities through special research projects, corporate activity plans, training programs and expert support.
Developing cooperative support programs and mergers, cooperation and partnership structures between cooperatives is of critical importance within the scope of this strategy.
Finally, cooperatives should be considered not only as initiatives that meet the basic and urgent needs of women, but also as labor organizations that will strengthen them professionally and technically.
In addition, making all kinds of regulations in the legislation and developing the institutional system in order to support women's cooperatives emerge as the most ideal solutions for the empowerment of women through cooperatives in Turkey.
