On the occasion of International Women's Day, I would like to extend my most sincere regards and personal esteem to all the women around the world.

I hope that we will seize this day as yet another opportunity to address the challenges women face in every single aspect of life and to focus on to ways and means to honor our commitments in empowering their status, safeguarding gender equality and creating the necessary conditions so that they can fully enjoy their rights.

Successfully fulfilling all the responsibilities they assume in political, economic and social sphere, women are pioneers of transformation and development. Today, the communities recognizing women's rights, dignity and freedom are more prosperous, more enlightened and more developed.

Turkey, to this date, has adopted and implemented numerous legal reforms, programs and initiatives to guarantee women's rights and gender equality. To that end, various programs have been introduced to increase women's access to health and education as well as their participation in the workforce and politics.

Along with these, as the first country to ratify the "Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence" (İstanbul Convention) without any reservations, Turkey is firmly committed to combatting violence against women, a grave violation of human rights.In a world where 1 in 3 women still experience violence at some point in her life, we believe that international community should further solidify its efforts to prevent violence against women.

The future we want is a world where every woman can live free from discrimination and violence, and enjoy fully her human rights and dignity.

Happy International Women’s Day!

Serdar Kılıç

Ambassador