Coordination at national level

• Author: Karan, Ula?
• Pages: 108-109

108

9 COORDINATION AT NATIONAL LEVEL

Turkey does not have a Government department/other authority responsible for dealing

with or coordinating issues regarding anti-discrimination on the grounds covered by this

report.

According to a press statement issued on April 2010 by the Secretariat General for EU

Affairs, a task force on anti-discrimination was established to monitor and coordinate the

steps to be taken in the fight against discrimination.388 The task force was reported to

include representatives from the Ministry of Justice, Ministry of the Interior, Ministry of

Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Labour and Social Security, Human Rights Institution, General

Directorate on the Status of Women, Disability Administration and Agency for Social

Services and Child Protection. These representatives would be in touch with 81 deputy

governors, and those efforts would be coordinated by the Secretariat-General for EU

Affairs.389 However, no further information is available on the initiative, and the outcome

of it is not known. In 2013, the Disabled Rights Monitoring and Evaluation Board was

established to ‘carry out necessary administrative and legal arrangements for the

protection and promotion of the rights of the disabled’.390

Turkey does not have any anti-racism or anti-discrimination national action plans.

As far as persons with disabilities are concerned, the General Directorate of Services for

Persons with Disabilities and the Elderly within the Ministry of Family and Social Policy is

the designated focal point for the implementation of the UNCRPD. The Strategy Paper on

Accessibility and the National Action Plan (SPANAP), which was adopted in November 2010

pursuant to a Government decision which declared 2010 the year of accessibility for

persons with disabilities, e xists only on paper.391 SPANAP is based on the premise that,

despite a number of laws and regulations adopted since the late 1990s, the central Turkish

Government and local municipalities fail to work in a holistic and systematic manner; rules

concerning accessibility are implemented in an inadequate and inaccurate fashion; and

many of the limited measures adopted to ensure accessibility are unusable. To remedy

these problems, SPANAP aims to achieve the following three goals: revising the legislative

framework, raising societal awareness and ensuring implementation.

Since 2011, the Ministry of Family and Social Policies is tasked with national coordination

of all initiatives undertaken by the Government under the ‘Roma opening’ policy, which

was declared in 2009 ‘with a view to identifying and seeking solutions for the problems

faced by the Roma particularly in the fields of employment, housing, health and education

through increasing dialogue between the Roma and relevant Government units’.392 To that

end, starting in December 2009 a series of workshops and meetings was held between

senior Government leaders and representatives of the Roma community.393 The tangible

388 Republic of Turkey Prime Ministry Secretariat General for EU Affairs, ‘Conclusions of the 20th Reform

Monitoring Group Meeting’ (press statement), Konya, 9 April 2010, available at:

https://www.ab.gov.tr/files/BasınMusavirlik/20.rig/20rig_press.pdf.

389 Müderrisoğlu, O., ‘Ayrımcılık için Özel Görev Gücü Kuruluyor’ (‘New Task Force to be Established against

Discrimination’), Sabah, 14 March 2010, available at:

http://www.sabah.com.tr/Gundem/2010/03/14/ayrimcilik_icin_ozel_gorev_gucu_kuruluyor.

390 Turkey (2014), National report submitted in accordance with paragraph 5 of the annex to Human Rights

Council resolution 16/21, submitted to the UN Human Rights Council Working Group on the Universal

Periodic Review 21st session: 19-30 January 2015, p. 18, available at: https://documents-dds-

ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G14/194/36/PDF/G1419436.pdf?OpenElement.

391 Strategy Paper on Accessibility Strategy and the National Action Plan (Ulaşılabilirlik Stratejisi ve Eylem Planı)

(2010-2011), Official Gazette, 12 November 2010.

392 CERD (2014), Consideration of reports submitted by States parties under article 9 of the Convention,

Combined fourth to sixth periodic reports of States parties due in 2013: Turkey, CERD/C/TUR/4-6, p. 5,

available at:

http://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/treatybodyexternal/Download.aspx?symbolno=CERD%2fC%2fTUR%2f

4-6&Lang=en.

393 For a detailed listing of these events prior to 2014, see CERD (2014), Consideration of reports submitted by

States parties under article 9 of the Convention, Combined fourth to sixth periodic reports of States parties