International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women: Women call out in 9 languages, keep our mother tongues alive, live up to the Istanbul Convention

By Gazete Sabro (24 November 2020), ISTANBUL – On the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, November 25, the Women’s Mother Tongue Working Group in Turkey has made a call in nine languages ​​accompanied by a video shared on social media. Their message on this special day is to keep the mother tongue alive and live up to the Istanbul Convention as the Istanbul Convention lets us live.

The Istanbul Convention referred to here is the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence. It is a human rights treaty of the Council of Europe against violence against women and domestic violence, which was opened for signature on 11 May 2011, in Istanbul, Turkey.

The Women’s Mother Tongue Working Group shared a video addressed in nine languages: in Georgian, Kurdish, Laz, Armenian, Homshetsi, Syriac, Abkhaz, Circassian, and Turkish.

The message of the Women’s Mother Tongue Working Group is as follows:

“On November 25, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, I would like to address you in my native language. It is the mother tongue that makes us what we are. Shouting, talking…. in our daily labor, our history, our struggle, our existence… We become our mother tongue.

We live life and our path crosses with other lives. Our path crosses with other native languages. Our home where we live our pain and share our hopes, is our mother tongue that connects us to each other.

As stated in the Istanbul Convention, for which we fight to implement and to which we are a party, it is a right to provide competent translators for the victims of violence and their witnesses to express themselves in their native languages. Life is a right, mother tongue is a right. For the mother tongue to live, live up to the Istanbul Convention.”