ISTANBUL CONFERENCE

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 129, 3 June 1935, Page 15

ISTANBUL CONFERENCE

INTERNATIONAL WOMEN

NEW ZEALANDER A DELEGATE

A very interesting report of part of the International Conference of Women which has just taken place at Istanbul is sent by Miss Amy Kane, who is a delegate from the branch of the International Suffrage Society here. Miss Kane speaks of the marniflcence of the Yildiz Palace where the conference was held.

"It was wonderful, when Madame Tafil Bekir (president of the Union of Turkish Women) stood up before that great assemblage of hundreds of women and made a delightful speech of welcome, and one realised that only eleven years ago the Turkish women were veiled," said the writer. "But of course one realises that the idea of education and emancipation had been filtering In for years previously. There are some interesting personalities here and I was so pleased to renew old acquaintances. Among these Mrs. Ogilvie Gordon, Madame Dreyfus Barney, and Miss Van Eghen, who arae- respresenting the Internationals. Another was Princess Cantalene, from Rumania, who is here, more of a fighter than ever! She was also at Washington in 1925. Still, this is distinctly an Eastern meeting, there are women from Egypt, Greece, Syria,

Palestine (both Jewish and Arab women), Irak, and India, as well as Turkey, Bulgaria, Rumania, Yugoslavia, and some of.the Eastern- European countries as well. There is a particularly fine little Polish woman, an M.P. So far we have been busy forming committees who do the work and bring reports to central meetings, and the speeches at these are rather wonderful. ■ ■ CONDITIONS OF WORK FOR WOMEN. ■ "This committee made it clear that the attack on the woman worker, particularly the married women, is worldwide. The Turkish women stated that there is no differentiation there, but they have only just begun to work. The Dutch delegates also said they had no differentiation in law, but there was in custom. This seems the case rather generally, although in a number of cases there was actual distinction in law. It seems that usually the first attack is made on the civil servant and teachers (as in New Zealand). In Palestine there is an inter-department agreement to dismiss woriien on marriage. However, the delegate from the Jewish Women's Zionist Association said that they, did not suffer from any such distinction. • A Turkish delegate made the interesting remark that if a woman teacher was sent into the interior efforts were made to get her husband a position there also, which sounds as if the women had the best of the bargain. In Egypt the women do not seem to work anywhere except in the' Civil Service, as also do the Greek and non-Egyptian women. NEW INDUSTRIAL CODES. "An American delegate had something to say about the new industrial codes which seem to have had the effect of raising women's wages. There were, however, 569 codes and 138 contained differentiations. ' Nationality of married women has been a burning question, of course, and, they had a special session on it, arid some particularly interesting, facts were mentioned. I wished I had known how the "New Zealand Bill had fared, but had no news of it. If a Turkish; woman marries a foreigner she. can retain her1 own nationality; if a foreign' woman marries a Turk she takes his nationality— purely nationalistic legislation, and wise from their point of view, as they need people, but by ho means a cause of sex equality.- 'America has its Cable Act, .and in Denmark a woman retains her own nationality unless she goes to another country; in Rumania a woman can retain.her nationality.on application. The conference will be asked to support the' Montevideo Treaty, which is to conae before the League of Nations in September.

"Another informative meeting was that which dealt with women under different forms of' Government, when it also seemed'from reports* that there has been "a definite reaction against equal citizenship in many 'countries! The Indian delegate gave an excellent report of their losses and gains, mentioning some of the specific difficulties. After the matter had been left to the Provincial Councils in five years nearly every council had granted a suffrage, but even this did not mean equality, except on paper. The inheritance laws were specially bad.

"At the present time Egypt has no Parliament, and !it '■ appeared ' from many reports' that so. many countries are getting a form of Government approaching dictatorship, and under these conditions women come off badly. •

"A woman who received, much applause was a coloured woman from Jamaica, a Miss Massyn, . wh6 is quite young, and spoke so well and feelingly on behalf of all the coloured people. She made a stirring appeal to the white women to support their efforts to get the marriages made legal and the children legitimatised following on the time when marriage was forbid-

den, bringing under the law many who were kept outside from no fault of their own. She said that the white races had practically divided Africa between them, and it was only justice for the v,fcmen to support their coloured sisters in their efforts to right the wrongs, which are many, and press heavily on the people. Her speech received immense applause and evidently reached the hearts of those present. Another touching speech was made by an Arab woman from Syria, who appealed to those women who had the rights of citizenship to help others less fortunate. ENTERTAINMENTS. "There was much entertaining of congress members. The Mayor gave a dinner party for all the delegates, over 200, and a tea party was given by the Turkish women at the Dolmanbagtche Palace, a magnificent place on the edge of the Bosphorus, and set in perfectly wonderful gardens. We met in a beautiful reception room which held a thousand people without any crowding. \ It was beautifully decorated, with a dome painted in tiers and a crystal chandelier that I am sure must be the largest in the world. It is so like a fairy palace altogether that the guests simply wandered round gazing instead of talking together. '

"Mrs. Corbett-Ashby, the president of the congress, is simply a wonderful woman, and can speak Turkish fluently, as well as several other languages. She has the valuable quality '■ of always seeming smiling and pleasant, and is a splendid leader at all the. social affairs as well as in conference, her charming well-groomed appearance' of course being a great asset."