The U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), examining the seventh periodic report on women's rights in Turkey on Wednesday, thanked Turkey for its generosity to Syrian refugees. The Turkish committee was led by the general director on the Status of Women, Gülser Ustaoğlu, from the Family and Social Policies Ministry, who said that Turkey had spent about $11 billion on Syrian refugees so far within the context of its open door policy to provide them with education, healthcare, security and psychosocial support. Informing the committee on the status of women's rights in Turkey, Ustaoğlu said that the country had not made concessions in its ongoing reform process in the field of human rights even though it had experienced a substantial immigration flow within the last few years as well as many terrorist attacks. Ustaoğlu recalled that Turkey was the first country to ratify the Council of Europe's convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence in 2012 and emphasized that violence against women cannot be stopped with legal and administrative arrangements alone. He said the staff at the institutions providing service to female victims of violence is being educated in order to raise awareness in society. "The number has not measured up yet, but there has been a certain increase in these numbers each year." She said there are currently 81 female deputies in Parliament, making the representation rate of women in Parliament 15 percent.
