Turkey’s first all-women district market, opened in the Bağcılar neighborhood of the Bağlar district of Amed in 2013 by the local municipality, which at that time (before the crackdown and collapse of the peace process) was largely made up of women directors and vice directors working. The municipality developed many projects to support women. Unfortunately the Turkish state later imprisoned many municipality workers, mayors and democratically elected politicians across Turkey and appointed their own un-elected trustees to municipalities.
In 2021, Diyarbakır’s Bağlar Municipality mayor decided to place 400 men in Turkey’s first all-women district market.
Reports in 2022 indicated the state-appointed trustee made a new decision, giving the places of women to men. Objecting to this decision, women kept watch at night and stopped men from setting up their stalls in their market.
One of the women stallholders said, “Only women have set up their stalls at the market for about 10 years. Men have been setting up their stalls at the market for a year after the decision of the municipality. Now, the Bağlar Municipality allows men to set up their stalls on Thursday in the place where we set up our stalls on Monday. If men set up their stall on Thursday, it will prevent us from selling our products. Yesterday, we held a protest. The mayor wanted to meet us after the protest and told us that this decision is a temporary decision. We will continue to resist and hold protests with our families until a solution is found. If necessary, we go to the municipality and march to Ankara. We resist for our bread. We will now allow anyone to take our bread from us.”
