Prof. Yakın Ertürk, former Special Rapporteur (2003-2009)

Yakın Ertürk has been on the faculty of the Department of Sociology, Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey, since 1986. She also taught at the Centre for Girls, at King Saud University in Riyadh (1979-1982), and from 1979 to 1981, served as its Chair. From 1997 and 2001 she worked at the United Nations, serving first as Director of the International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW) in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic (Oct. 1997 - Feb. 1999), then as Director of the Division for the Advancement of Women (DAW) at UN Headquarters in New York (March 1999 – Oct. 2001).

She has worked for various national and international agencies on rural development and women in development projects. Her academic areas of interest are International Human Rights Regimes; Identity Politics, Conflict and Violence against Women; Globalization and Population Movements; Household Labour Use Patterns and Women in Development.

On 1 August 2003, Yakın Ertürk was appointed as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, and served until 2009. She undertook fact finding missions to various countries; addressed complaints regarding violations of women’s human rights from around the world; and prepared thematic reports on violence against women and girls, its causes and consequences. She submitted reports on all her activities and findings to the Human Rights Council of the United Nations.