Queen
Elizabeth has recognized the continuing efforts of a Turkish woman who
has been working for more than two decades to provide “support to
victims of rape and sexual assault in Turkey.”
U.K.
Ambassador to Turkey Richard Moore personally delivered an honorary
Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) to Nazlı Hamitoğlu on
June 1, before hosting the queen’s birthday reception.
Moore said he
was “proud to award” an honorary MBE to Hamitoğlu who has pioneered
support for victims of sexual assault over the past 21 years with the
consulate.
An MBE is awarded for a significant achievement or
outstanding service to the community and is also awarded for local
“hands-on” service which stands out as an example to other people.
“I
didn’t start doing this intentionally, but awareness about women
becomes involved in the issue, and you come to a situation in which you
cannot turn a blind eye to the matter. After that, if you have the
opportunity to help, you just become involved in it. I also have to
thank the British Consulate for giving me this opportunity,” Hamitoğlu,
46, told the Hürriyet Daily News on June 1.
“As
a citizen you can only do so much, but in an official capacity, the
places you go and the people you talk to change. So this gives me a
chance to help foreigners and consequently my own citizens. As a woman
myself; may God forbid, one day I could be sexually assaulted,” she
said.
“So it is good that the system is working quite well since
it could be beneficial for me too although I hope it doesn’t come to
that. It could be beneficial to one of my friends or to someone I know,
too. That’s why it is of use that we improve the system. Besides this,
foreigners could have other difficulties such as the language barrier
and not knowing how the system flows. These difficulties first occur in
the police station. They need to testify but they can’t. They can’t make
themselves understood. When this happens, the other side misunderstands
them and misjudges them. There is a culture gap. Some behavior that is
normal to foreigners can be misjudged.”
‘Factory floor and empathy’Hamitoğlu, a resident of Marmaris, is a graduate of the American Collegiate Institute in İzmir. Later, she studied business administration at Dokuz Eylül University.
“I
am from Marmaris, and tourism always remained a part of me. I started
working when I was 14 years old. I am on the factory floor of this job. I
did hotel management and also worked in agencies. My main job is
guiding tourists. [Working as a guide] gave me a big opportunity because
I started working in the embassy knowing some information about the
jobs of many people in various fields. So I can say that this experience
helped me a lot,” she said.
“There is this situation where you
need to empathize with the people there when you start working in an
environment that you’re not familiar with at all. It is really crucial
to know what they are thinking. This made my job very easy because I can
do my job considering myself as an agent. Another example is that when
there is an incident in a hotel, I approach the hoteliers knowing why
they are acting in such a fashion since I’m an hotelier. Because we
approach people without hurting them, we settle the matter amicably.”
‘Each other’s cure’“Since
I’m working in the British Consulate, I’m sometimes considered the
right person for the job for the British. Moreover, because I’m Turkish,
I become the right person for the job for the Turkish. But there is no
such thing. Our main goal is to show people how things work over here,
give them the necessary information and awareness. When we do this with
the right wording, the British people show respect and the Turkish
officials want to benefit from this too when they see our approach. You
become each other’s cure for the problem,” she said.
