Women's Rights Are Human Rights: An Interview With Pinar Ikkaracan

Abstract

Dr. Pinar Ikkaracan, psychotherapist, researcher, and activist, is the founding president of Womenfor Women’s Human Rights (WWHR) — NEW WAYS, a women’s nongovernmental organizationthat led various successful legal reforms in Turkey toward gender equality. She has created anationwide human rights education program to enable women to exercise their rights in Turkeythat is implemented in 40 provinces, especially for women with lower socioeconomic status.She was awarded the International Women’s Human Rights Award of the Gruber Foundationin 2007 for her leadership for women’s rights at the global level. She has contributed signifi -cantly to development of women’s human rights in various meetings of the United Nations. In2001, she initiated the international network Coalition for Sexual and Bodily Rights in MuslimSocieties (CSBR), a network of 38 leading organizations and academics from 14 Muslimcountries. Ikkaracan is the editor of Women and Sexuality in Muslim Societies (translated intoArabic and Turkish) and Deconstructing Sexuality in the Middle East (forthcoming) and coauthorof Gender and Sexuality, The Myth of the Warm Home: Domestic Violence and Sexual Abuse, andHuman Rights Education for Women: Training Manual. The following interview was conductedby Dr. Craig Shealy, editor of Beliefs and Values, on November 13, 2009. It has been editedfor length and readability. For more information about WWHR, CSBR, and Dr. Ikkaracan, seehttp://www.wwhr.org.