Capabilities Indicators for Human Rights Cities in Turkey: A Gender-Specific Approach

Abstract

There has been a growing movement around human rights cities (HRCs) in the last two decades, supported by citizens, public institutions, civil society organizations, and academia. Diverse HRC practices and approaches have accompanied this development. Most work to date has focused on processes and institutionalization and remains case-specific; comparative rights-based empirical research at the local level is rare. To fill this gap, this paper proposes indicators as a tool for assessment of human rights in cities. The development of the indicators forms part of a broader project initiated by Raoul Wallenberg Institute (RWI) Research Worldwide Istanbul and the Union of Turkish World Municipalities, in which seven Turkish municipalities have been collaboratively developing HRC capacities since mid-2017. This study focuses on gender as a cross-cutting component of the multidimensional human rights space. It utilizes a capabilities approach to transform an abstract notion of rights into concrete, observable concepts and indicators that connect human rights and the provision of public goods and services through the capabilities of citizens. The proposed gender indicators have been tested through a series of semi-structured interviews with contact persons in participating municipalities. The HRC processes in these municipalities serve as an exemplar for research and activism regarding HRCs, especially in a developing country context.