The 2025 report of the Esenyalı Women’s Solidarity Association in Istanbul revealed a significant increase in women’s requests for support. According to the report, a total of 8,349 women and children applied to the association for reasons such as violence, economic assistance and legal counseling; this number marks an increase of approximately 42 percent compared to the previous year.
Another striking finding of the report was that a significant portion of the 600 job applications came from children and young people. The picture, in which impoverishment, violence and the disruption of education are intertwined, revealed the worsening living conditions of women and children.
Adile Doğan, Chair of the Esenyalı Women’s Solidarity Association, emphasized that women are increasingly trying to survive through individual efforts in the face of deepening poverty and violence, but stressed that the solution lies in collective struggle and organization.
Our 2025 report points to violence and poverty together
Adile Doğan said that the problems women face are not limited to violence alone and should be addressed within a broader framework together with poverty. Doğan said:
“Our 2025 report does not only cover violence; it also addresses poverty and its subheadings. With the declaration of the ‘Year of the Family,’ we see that women are being pushed step by step into poverty and how this process feeds violence. The fact that this report is being presented in 2026 also partly reveals what awaits us. Issues such as maternity leave and work arrangements are being discussed; everything being proposed brings greater poverty and struggle into women’s lives.”
Doğan also noted that women are trying to survive through individual efforts, but that these efforts are combined with insecurity and isolation. She continued: “As we approach March 8, the most defining feature of this period is impoverishment and the struggle against it. However, this struggle mostly proceeds in an individual way. Women try to find solutions on their own; they apply for assistance, ask for help, they work, yet they still cannot make ends meet. As poverty deepens, as income declines and violence escalates on top of it, they feel even more insecure. We also have the impression that they hesitate to act collectively.”
Employers insist on not giving raises
Adile Doğan stated that many women workers earn only slightly above the minimum wage, yet employers insist on not granting additional raises. Doğan said: “Women earn just a little above the minimum wage in the factories where they work, but employers refuse to give raises. They say, ‘You have to make do with what the state has given you. There are masses of unemployed women outside; if you leave, someone else will take your place.’ As a result, women turn to jobs with overtime. They try to get into whichever factory offers more overtime. They act with the feeling of searching for a solution, a way out of poverty.”
Poverty doubles violence
Doğan stressed that poverty increases violence against women and that the violence that already existed has doubled with poverty, spreading toward women, children and others.
Doğan also pointed to the situation of child workers and said: “More than ninety child workers died while working within a single year. Despite this, the number of children looking for work is very high. Children who leave school do not even consider transferring to Vocational Education Centers (MESEM), because they would receive only half a salary there, so they turn to full-time jobs instead. There are places where they can work full time, of course, but because they are children, they are not paid the wages they demand.”
Women’s demands emerge at the intersection of poverty and violence
Adile Doğan said that poverty and the struggle against it form the main framework for raising demands in the lead-up to March 8 as she addressed women workers. Doğan said: “On March 8, without stepping back from our demands, we emphasize the demand to live and work with dignity. In a place reached by eight thousand women, there is not a single childcare center. Sending a child to daycare is almost a dream. For this reason, demands must primarily include the need for childcare centers.”
Doğan also emphasized the importance of unity and trade union organization against the exploitation of women’s labor. She also said: “The exploitation of women’s labor is turning into double exploitation with the discourse of the ‘Year of the Family.’ Wages are steadily eroding, purchasing power is declining, and children cannot attend school because they cannot be adequately fed. The way out of this situation is not to speak individually with employers and ask for raises; it is to unite, join trade unions, raise demands and secure working conditions. While some women are looking for jobs with overtime, there is also the reality that many women who fall out of production do not return to the workforce. Because they have constraints: children, care responsibilities and shift conditions. For this reason, part-time work is becoming increasingly widespread.”
Women feel the necessity of change
Doğan said that violence and insecurity have increased in women’s daily lives, making the need for struggle more visible. She said, “There is the reality that six women are murdered in a single day. All women are aware of this. Even if they know nothing else, they know this. Because there is no woman left who can walk in the street without looking over her shoulder; women are aware that things must change and they have an idea about this.”
Doğan also emphasized the importance of turning the search that emerges from desperation into a mechanism of struggle and said: “The desperation of women who work long hours and still cannot feed themselves must be turned into a mechanism of struggle. Without confining this to certain days, voices coming together from many places in a longer-term struggle will give women confidence, and women will rise from here.”
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