At the end of 2008, PUMA trained female workers at its supplier Milteks in Istanbul on the rights they have as women at work and in general. The four-week training course covered issues such as how to use the rights and guarantees granted by the New Turkish Civil Code, female health issues, child education, combating violence against women in the family, combating sexual harassment at the workplace, methods for better communication within the family, workplace and public life and managing the double burden of work and family lives.

PUMA implemented this training in one of their key Turkish factories in order to empower these female employees with knowledge about their rights and entitlement to education. The local puma.safe auditor, who organized the training, was initially concerned with whether the women would be willing to participate in the training at all. However, the training turned out to be a success, increasing the self-esteem, self-confidence and, most importantly, the knowledge of the participants. The training evaluation report can be downloaded here.

Here is what some of the women had to say:

“The training was successful. I learned lots of things that I did not know before. For some issues, lawyers came here to give seminars. That was great. I learned a lot of things especially with regard to women’s health and rights of workers. Before I did not know those things, I did not know what to do, where to go. Most important is that I did not know how to act in the factory. I learned all those issues. My mother also works here and she participated in the training, too. When we went home after the training we kept on talking and discussing. We started to share lots of things that we did not speak about before. For example during the training, one day I told about discrimination. After the training I discussed it for a long time with my mother. In addition, we told other women around us about these issues, our friends or relatives. We tried to share the positive energy we got from the training with other women.”
- Elvan Demircioğlu, Assistant of Pattern Maker

“When I first heard about the training, I thought that it was ridiculous. But after the training started, day by day, I learned that I have lots of rights. I learned things about my own health. In fact, I learned that I am a human, an individual who has rights. Of course everything around me is not changing so quickly, but I realized that it is changing step by step.”
- Gülsen Keskin, Quality Controller

“Lots of things have been changed here after the training. At the beginning you made a survey and you asked some questions like: ‘Can a woman come home late at night?’ or ‘Should a woman get her husband’s permission to work?’ Lots of women answered that women cannot go home late and need her husband’s permission to work. Now they say: ‘No, women can do it.’ ”
- Ayfer Kurnaz, Quality Controller

The project is currently continued SLN Tekstil, another strategic PUMA partner in Turkey.