Topic:
Country: Turkey
Delegate Name: Vivienne Grzelak
In Turkey, women’s and girls’ education is becoming a top priority. Female literacy has risen to 93.56% in the country. Unfortunately, 45% of girls under 15 are illiterate today. Even more unfortunate, two-thirds of adults are without basic literacy skills on the eastern side of the country. One big reason these women and girls have such big literacy problems is that there are such high poverty levels and adolescent pregnancy. Even now in 2022, only 18% of women ages 25-64 will have any higher education.
The main reasons why girls have such low education rates in Turkey are that girls are not given the time to keep up with their education. Child marriage is quite common. The reason child marriage is so common is to help minimize the economic burden on the daughter’s family. 15% of girls in Turkey are subjected to child marriage. This has gone down from the 20% of child marriages in 2016.
Although Turkey is improving in strides, with 45% of the population’s girls now going to school and getting a basic education, this could still be improved though. With the help of richer countries like the United Kingdom and Germany, we could help reduce the rate of poverty in Turkey. If you reduce the poverty rate, more girls would have the opportunity to go to school, as they would not be working to provide for their families or getting married off for financial benefit. These girls are not really given an opportunity for their education and if more financial stability for eastern turkey were available it would change these girls’ lives.
