A new field study, which began in January last year and involved face-to-face interviews with 2,975 women across three districts of Diyarbakir (Amed), reflected the problems women experience in the city as a result of poverty. Following the study, local authorities aim to implement projects based on the demands and needs identified by women on the ground.
Across Turkey, women face a significantly higher risk of poverty than men. According to the 2024 report Women in Statistics published by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TURKSTAT), 31.5 percent of women are at risk of poverty or social exclusion, compared with approximately 27.1 percent of men. In Kurdistan, where this gap deepens further, both women’s participation in the workforce and overall employment rates are lower. According to a report by the Turkish Employment Agency (ISKUR) in Diyarbakir, 44 percent of registered unemployed people in the city are women.
In Diyarbakir, both the overall employment rate and women’s employment rate remain well below the national average. While women’s employment in Turkey stands at around 30 percent, this figure falls to 20 percent in Diyarbakir. Most available jobs are allocated to men, and male employment in the city is nearly three times higher than female employment.
In order to identify the deep poverty experienced by women in Diyarbakir and to develop solutions to the shortcomings they face, the Union of Southeastern Municipalities (GABB) conducted a field study titled The Feminisation of Poverty: Mapping Inequality in Diyarbakir. In cooperation with local municipalities, quantitative and qualitative fieldwork was carried out throughout 2025 in the districts of Baglar, Sur and Kayapinar in Diyarbakir. Face to face surveys were conducted with 2,975 women across the three districts, and in depth interviews were held with 29 women.
Prepared under the title Research Report on the Map of Women’s Poverty in Diyarbakir, the study addresses how poverty is experienced by women in a holistic manner, focusing on unpaid domestic labour and care burdens, employment and unemployment, income and expenditure balance, social assistance, indebtedness, housing and access to basic needs.
The report highlights women’s income levels, the difficulties they face and their access to basic needs. It notes in particular that many of the women interviewed do not have a stable income and are able to sustain their lives primarily through social assistance. The report also finds that women face social, cultural and psychological hardships as a result of economic difficulties, with divorced women and women who have experienced violence facing these economic anxieties more frequently. The report further underlines that the practice of appointing trustees to municipalities and the closure of women’s institutions have played a significant role in producing these outcomes. In response to the findings, local authorities aim to implement measures on the ground to minimise women’s poverty. Alongside this report, local administrations plan to expand production and employment opportunities for women and to prepare their budgets accordingly, while continuing their field work.
There are women who do not eat anything during the day
Semiha Arı, an independent researcher who took part in the study and authored the report, detailed the findings concerning women and the depth of poverty revealed by the research. Arı explained that refugee women, divorced women and women living under pressure struggle at every stage of life. She added that women who live in rented accommodation or who have no income prioritise their children’s needs over their own and survive through debt. Arı summed up what the report reveals by saying that it depicts “a situation that can be described not as poverty, but as hunger.”
Arı said: “Poverty is not limited to a lack of income alone, but the research shows very clearly how closely women’s poverty is linked to income and employment.”
Arı also said: “According to the surveys, 90 percent of women in Baglar and Sur do not have income-generating jobs, while this figure is 75 percent in Kayapinar. Yes, Turkey is a country of working poor. But if you have no income and are unemployed, you are being tested by hunger, because there are no social policies to protect you against unemployment and the kind of inflation crisis we are experiencing today. Indeed, the situation of the women we spoke with is better described as hunger rather than poverty. Malnutrition is widespread. Some women told us that there are days when they do not eat anything at all. If women do not have an income from paid work, their livelihoods depend largely on their husbands, fathers, in short, their families. Even the income coming from husbands or fathers is essentially an allowance given so that women can manage the household. Most of the women we spoke with, especially those with children, said that they make almost no spending on themselves and that they use their limited income to meet the needs of their households and their children.”
Women are going into debt just to buy food for their children
Semiha Arı shared examples of the hardships women face in their daily lives due to poverty and said: “The husbands of the women we conducted in depth, face-to-face interviews with, particularly in Sur and Baglar, were largely people working in day labour, irregular and low-income jobs. On the day of the interviews, some women told us that their husbands had been unemployed for months. Many were unable to meet basic needs such as food, access to healthcare, and housing. Because their social security coverage depends on their husbands’ employment status, some were unable to go to hospitals or obtain the medicines they needed. For people living in extremely unhealthy, damp homes in Sur and Baglar, homes that are very difficult to heat in winter and cool in summer, even paying what might be considered low rents was a struggle. They were cutting back on basic needs such as food to make their rent payments. Many people had to use credit cards or take on debt just to meet their most basic needs. There were women who said they had to go into debt just to buy snacks for their children. Half of the households with no proper income were in debt.”
Divorced women experience poverty in its most severe form
Semiha Arı said that women who are responsible for caring for children at home are unable to work because of the lack of childcare facilities, and that most jobs in the city are allocated to men, while women are expected to shoulder unpaid domestic labour. She noted that despite these constraints, many women try to earn some income by working as domestic cleaners or as seasonal labourers. Arı added that working conditions themselves further limit women’s access to employment, and that refugee women and divorced women in particular face even greater hardship in this process.
Arı continued: “It is also necessary to address how poverty is compounded in the case of refugees. Among the women we interviewed, there was a Syrian refugee who was working two jobs at once. She said, ‘As long as my children are full, it does not matter if I do not eat.’ This is one of the most extreme examples of working poverty, and it also shows how women, and refugee women in particular, experience poverty far more harshly. Another issue concerns the situation of women who are divorced or in the process of divorcing. Among the participants, they were the ones experiencing poverty in its most severe form. They were left completely alone and without support. When women leave men who have subjected them to violence and try to build a new life, the system effectively punishes them. For example, one woman who was in the process of divorcing was unable to receive social assistance because the divorce had not yet been finalised, even for her child with a disability, because the man she was separating from had a job with social security. She was trying to care for her three children entirely on her own, without any income at all.”
This study is a starting point for us
Necla Gürsoy, Director of Women and Family Affairs at the Union of Southeastern Municipalities, spoke about the findings of the research and the steps local administrations plan to take, underlining the seriousness of the data.
Gürsoy said that through this reporting effort, they aimed to identify problems on the ground and to pursue solution-oriented work accordingly. She also said: “This research is also a political necessity. During the periods when trustees were appointed, institutions, services and programmes that directly addressed women’s economic and social needs were dismantled, closed down, or rendered ineffective. The narrowing of the space for rights on the ground further deepened poverty. It is precisely in the aftermath of this destruction that we initiated this work, so that local administrations can rebuild their social policies.”
What matters to us is turning women’s words into data
Necla Gürsoy drew attention to the findings in the report regarding social assistance and stressed that social support should be understood as a right, not as charity. She underlined that despite the scale of poverty, the rate of access to social assistance remains very low, and that when social support is reduced to a single channel, it ultimately ends up managing poverty rather than addressing it.
Gürsoy said such assistance must be made more equitable and solution oriented, and conveyed the main demands expressed by women in the report as follows: “The report also shows that women’s primary expectations from municipalities are access to employment opportunities, vocational training, and production and market opportunities linked to that training. Within this framework, as the Directorate of Women’s Policies of the Union of Southeastern Municipalities and the municipalities, we are pursuing a comprehensive approach that includes training and employment models that make women’s labour visible and connect it with income, support mechanisms such as JinKart that facilitate access to transportation, legal and judicial support programmes, production hubs such as dairies, and spaces like EkoJin that expand women’s participation in social and cultural life. We see this study as a starting point. For us, the real significance of the report lies in turning women’s words into data. This data can now be used as a basis on which municipalities can reshape their policy and budget priorities. In this way, we will link the needs identified in the report to municipal planning and budgeting. Within this scope, we will focus on developing a common framework as well as strengthening monitoring and implementation capacity.”
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