The most common reason why women receive coverage in the Turkish media is due to domestic violence, say women's rights activists, who explain that the issue is a problem that affects not only woman but the country as a whole.

A report prepared by the Media Monitoring Center (MTM), which examines more than 1,700 publications, broadcasters, newspapers and periodicals each month, has revealed that news coverage focused on women in Turkey is generally related to issues of domestic violence, harassment and life-threatening situations.Nevval Sevindi, a Turkish journalist and author, said the biggest problem for women in Turkey is domestic violence, noting, however, that this is a national problem.Stating that violence has become much more widely discussed over the last 10 years, Sevindi hailed this as a positive development because in the past, women would not tell their parents or friends about the violence they were subjected to.Sevindi also voiced the belief that Turkey will overcome the problem of domestic violence thanks to a large number of good projects currently under way supporting the education of women -- despite obstacles preventing covered women from pursuing higher education and the widespread perception that girls should not go to school, but boys should.Particularly in the rural parts of Turkey, where people often face financial problems, many families have a tendency to send their sons to school but not their daughters. Families do not want to invest in their daughters' education as they are expected to part from the family after marriage while sons are seen as a guarantee for their parents' future. Women on Saturday rallied in İstanbul's Kadıköy district to honor International Women's Day, celebrated on March 8. “There are also many women's associations dealing with women's problems. … Thanks to these associations, many women can easily express their problems without any fear from their husbands, while speaking about these issues was not possible many years ago,” added Sevindi.Vildan Yirmibeşoğlu, secretary-general of the Association for Education and Supporting Women Candidates (KA-DER), complained about the low of representation of women in politics, currently around 9 percent.“Women are at the center of life. They are bringing up their children nicely. Some of them are working in various jobs; however, they are not represented in Parliament sufficiently. Turkey has 81 provinces, but there is not a single female governor. This means Turkey is being governed by one hand -- males. This is a big loss,” said Yirmibeşoğlu.Regarding violence against women, Yirmibeşoğlu noted that women were generally portrayed negatively in the news, an observation also noted in the MTM report. “The number of educated women is increasing with each passing day, and women will no longer be dependent on their husbands as they will have economic freedom. In addition, being against all forms of discrimination against women and ensuring equality for both genders is the primary condition of being a democrat, so Turkey is trying to fight violence,” added Yirmibeşoğlu.Happiness directly linked to educational level, study showsIf we look at the Turkish Penal Code (TCK) and Turkish civil code, we can see that many amendments were made especially in 2004 and 2005 for the benefit of women, says Neslihan Akbulut, secretary-general of the Women's Rights Association Against Discrimination (AKDER). In her view, women should be encouraged in all respects and many amendments should be made to the Turkish Constitution in their favor. Akbulut believes that Turkey will be the best country in the world when problems such as patriarchy and discrimination against women are overcome.Even though violence against women takes many forms and occurs throughout Turkey, a study prepared by the Turkish Statistics Institute (TurkStat) has shown that 58 percent of women are happy while 50 percent of men are happy. According to the study, a person's happiness correlates directly with the individual's level of education. The rate of happiness for primary school graduates is around 52 percent while it is 63 percent for university graduates.  08 March 2010, MondayELIF AKDENIZ  İSTANBUL