See Us (Union of Turkey)

The Project

The project of “See us” is planned in order to raise awareness on “early marriage of girls”; it is a social awareness project in Turkey. The goals are to attract attention to the abuse suffered by the girls with this project, creating awareness and sensitivity in the community and in lawmakers and informing families about it. With the more consciousness created, it is the ultimate goal of the project to reduce the abuse experienced by children.

Objectives

To reduce the number/ratio of girls that are married under 17 years old within three years in Turkey (in 2022).

It is aimed to take attention to the abuse experienced by the child girls, to raise awareness in the community and the lawmakers about this issue and to create solutions for the problem by raising awareness.

For more: detailed project

Need project is addressing

According to the UNICEF report that is published in June 2016, 15 million girls are married every year in the world as child brides. In 2030, the number of children brides in the world is estimated to be around 950 million. When we look at Turkey, according to TUİK 2016 data, 111.241 people that’s ages are between 16-19 years old were married.

While the number of early marriage men is 11.008 in this figure, the number of girls are 100.233. This suggests that the rate of early marriage among girls is a 9-times more compared to men. According to TUİK data; in 2016, the number of children officially married was 28.956.

Turkish Union investigates the forced marriage of the people that are under 18 years old in three main aspects.

Methods of implementing the project

“See Us” project will be realized the activities that are followed a specific order.

Within the scope of the project; the first activities are preparations of project logo and project poster will be started to be used in media and social media communication and the Turkish Union cooperated with Marmara University Faculty of Fine Arts about logo design.

Preparations for project communication will continue with the “See Us” Manifesto which is still ongoing. A special manifesto will be prepared and shared with the public to take attention to child abuse. In the scope of the campaign which will be organized jointly with the Step-by-Step Formation, Soroptimists will run with the design accessories and/or costumes designed by Marmara University Faculty of Fine Arts students to create awareness to the subject in Istanbul Marathon. Manifesto press release at the end of the marathon will be held.

Parental Information Training will be planned within two months within the scope of the awareness-raising activities to be carried out. Awareness raising meetings will be organized for parents in cities of Adana, Ankara, Antakya, Gaziantep, Mersin, Istanbul, Izmir and Samsun. For the meetings, the support of the famous names will be taken, thus increasing public participation.

Simultaneously with these trainings, “See Us” Fashion Show and/or Exhibition, which consists of the designs of Marmara University Faculty of Fine Arts students, will be organized in every city. In addition to this, the fashion show will be held concurrently to the educations in order to keep the media’s interest in the subject actual. The aim of the project is to support the education of girls who are saved from marrying with the income obtained from the banners, t-shirts, badge sales and member donations prepared under the project “See Us”.

It aims that with this fund, research on the abuse of the girls in Turkey will be carried out, a press conference that will be explained the results of research will be shared with the community and to take the support of authorities of public in this issue.

Evaluation – Follow-up

The target groups are Families, Parents, Public and Private Organizations, NGO’s, Associations and thousands of girls whose life will be changed by these institutions that are affected by this project.

Marmara University Fine Arts Faculty’s teachers and students support the project with their designs. The project will be determined as the roof project of the Turkish Union and it will be expended to all 37 clubs within different cities of Turkey. There are no other supporting organizations at this stage.

The research study will be realized about the abuse of girls by early marriage in Turkey and outputs and detailed data’s will be reached.

Thank you to the following Clubs/Unions: