Dear Ebru Özdemir, Chair at Limak Investments and Limak Foundation,
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and gentlemen,

I would like to thank Limak for inviting me to this outstanding event, and giving an opportunity to address such a distinguished audience.

I am excited to be part of the discussion this evening on Kuwait’s Women Economic Empowerment Platform, and to learn more about the idea that is being presented by Ms. Ebru Özdemir.

And, I thank Ebru Hanım for presenting me as a role-model in her speech. I am honored.

As you can see engineering is a field which gives you analytical thinking and after this education you can practice many different jobs in life.

Dear guests,

Without a doubt, Empowering women to participate fully in economic life across all sectors is essential to build stronger economies, achieve internationally agreed goals for development and sustainability, and improve the quality of life for women, men, families and communities.

The private sector is a key partner in efforts to advance gender equality and empower women. In that sense, I am glad to see that Limak is committed to foster the strengthening of women's position in business life and society.

Here, I would like to refer to Limak’s initiative “Kuwait’s Engineer Girls”, which Ebru Hanım mentioned in her speech. The project, which aims to bring more young female engineers of Kuwait, to practice their profession deserves attention and appreciation. In fact, today’s gathering looks like a step forward to take this initiative. 2 days ago as I went to the construction site of Kuwait’s new airport, I met four of this young Kuwaiti women engineers and I had the opportunity to listen from them the details about their experience at this project.


Dear guests,

Empowering women in all areas of society, achieving equal opportunities between women and men are among my country’s main objectives. To this end, we have accelerated effort to carry the amendments in our legislation into practice.

In last 17 years, the female labor force participation rate has risen from 28% up to 38% and female employment rate from 21% to 30%. Our more than 9 million 122 thousand women in working life have further strengthened our country and made us proud with their production and success.

Also, Turkey is the fifth biggest signatory country to the Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs), which was signed by more than 1000 companies worldwide.

Dear guests,

Ebru Hanım touched upon the numbers to describe the situation in Kuwait regarding women and private sector. So, I will not go into the details. On the other hand, I need to stress that Kuwait has made significant progress to close the gender gap in education during the past decades and now hosts a population of highly educated young women and men. In fact, the Kuwaiti female labor force has doubled the percentage of women with university degrees than male counterparts. I feel lucky and privileged to be serving in such a country.

Within this framework, the commitment of Kuwaiti companies to the Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs) would lead to an inclusive and equitable private sector. It would also support Kuwait’s National Development Plan and 2035 Vision. In this process, the private sector has to play important role in advancing gender equality agenda in the region to the benefit of business, community and the country as a whole.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Before concluding my remarks, I would like to emphasize that women empowerment should go hand in hand with family empowerment.

A mentality which isolates women from working life and men from domestic life undermines the family concept. In my belief, Allah describes men and women as equal members of society who have a shared stake in public affairs.

I believe in strong women, strong family and strong society.

With these feelings in mind, I hope, today’s initiative by Limak would constitute yet another positive agenda item, which contributes to the already excellent relations between Turkey and Kuwait.

As Turkish Ambassador to the State of Kuwait, a woman and a mother of a girl I would like to thank Ebru Özdemir and her team for this excellent initiative.

Thank you.