For years, President Erdogan has wanted women in Turkey to give birth to "at least three children". The government has declared 2025 the "year of the family" to stimulate the birth rate. However, the real problems of women are different.
The government in Turkey has declared 2025 the "year of the family". Promoting a conservative image of the family is another attempt by Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) to shape Turkish society according to its own worldview.
In all 23 years since he has been in power, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly shown unequivocally what he wants. In 2008, he called on Turkish women to have "at least three children," which was widely criticized even then. The idea behind this is that Turkey should combat the declining birth rate and the related aging of the population. In 2012, Erdogan sent another message: "We want to raise religious youth," which he has repeated several times in recent years.
In the announced "year of the family," traditional Islamic values will be reinforced in family policy, and the institution of the family in general will be strengthened. Erdogan claims that there is "cultural erosion" and criticizes the image of the family in some of the popular media in Turkey. In his speech at the launch of the campaign, Erdogan spoke of a "politics of sexlessness" that attacked the family.
"Problems are being swept under the carpet"
Unsurprisingly, the campaign was not well received by human rights activists who support women. They accuse the government of creating a kind of "cultural hegemony" in family policy and of wanting to shape Turkish society according to its own worldview.
In late 2024, President Erdogan signed a decree on the "status of the family", which laid the foundation for the new campaign. Women's rights activist and lawyer Selin Nacipoglu believes that the aim is to impose Sharia law (Islamic law). According to her, this will reinforce outdated role models and inequality of women, including violence against them.
Nakipoglu says: “This policy will cement their subordinate position, as well as the exploitation of women's labor.“
The problem is exacerbated by the fact that Turkey is in a severe economic crisis: “We are currently living in unprecedented poverty. The government needs topics to distract citizens from the real problems. In fact, the central topic should be the severe poverty, for which the government itself is responsible“, the lawyer is convinced.
There is no policy for women in Turkey
The undermining of women's rights has been a major problem in Turkey for years. The consistently high number of murders of women in the country is particularly striking. According to data from the Turkish women's rights platform “Let's End Femicide“ In 2024, a total of 394 women were murdered, and another 259 deaths of women were classified as suspicious. In 2023, 315 femicide and 248 suspicious deaths were recorded.
In many cases, the alleged perpetrators remain unpunished, which regularly causes waves of outrage in Turkish society. Moreover, in 2021, Turkey withdrew from the Istanbul Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence.
It is precisely these conditions that give Canan Güllu, the president of the Federation of Turkish Women's Associations, reason to be particularly critical of the government's latest campaign. “2025 should not have been declared the year of the family, but the year of preventing femicide. Only such a decision could give women confidence,“ she says.
However, the government has no policy addressed to women. “Above all, women want their basic right to life to be protected. In a country where so many women are killed, the top priority should be to protect this right. It is a big mistake to reduce women to their role as mothers,“ Güllu also points out. She calls for concrete measures to combat violence against women, adding: “We offer solutions, but no one listens to us. A system that is unable to protect women cannot strengthen families.“
The birth rate in Turkey is declining. Why is that?
Güllü also believes that the government itself is responsible for the problems it claims to want to solve: the declining birth rate due to the ever-worsening economic situation and the resulting lack of prospects for many Turks, as well as the lack of trust many people have in the judicial system.
The statistics actually show that the government's family policy has failed to live up to expectations. In 2013, the government wanted to raise the birth rate to over 2.1 children per woman. By 2023, however, this figure had fallen to 1.5 children per woman.
According to demographer Ismet Koc of Hacettepe University in Ankara, the government has taken the wrong course in the past: "Financial incentives, childcare and the right for women to work part-time have proven to be insufficient. This is precisely the reason for the falling birth rate," he says.
New incentives?
Now the government wants to take countermeasures. In early 2025 New incentives have been announced: interest-free loans totaling 4,000 euros for couples getting married and cash benefits for the first child. There are also plans to expand childcare and increase child benefits for children born after 1 January 2025.
“At first glance, these ideas seem better than the current policy. However, it is not yet clear how all this will be implemented“, says Koç, adding: “Such a policy, which is based solely on financial incentives, can achieve only temporary success at best“.