Fatma Salman Kotan

Fatma Salman Kotan is Turkish Member of Parliament for Ağrı of the leading Justice and Development Party.

Born in Doğubeyazıt, Ağrı in 1970, Fatma Kotan is an accountant. She graduated in economics from Ataturk University in Erzurum.

Speaking at the Turkish Women Entrepreneurs Association in August 2007 she gave her life story as follows: My mother was my father's second wife. In our part of the world if a man is rich he will marry more than once. My mother died because of my father's pressure in her to have a son. I was the second child. The doctors told my mother it would be dangerous to have a third but my mother told us she had to make my father Sheikh Ahmet Salman happy, to continue his line by having a son. The doctors said it would be fatal to get pregnant but she didn't listen. Only a boy would make Sheikh Ahmet Salman happy. So my mother got pregnant for a third time and bore another girl. Two years later my mother died.

Ever since my childhood I have had it in my mind that not only a man can carry on the family of Sheikh Ahmet Salman, but a woman can too. That's why I was the first girl in my family to go to school. I went into politics and business. I knew that if I could make it i would be an inspiration to other women. By opening a brick factory in the area i showed that a woman could work in the dust and the mud. Now the number of women working in the area is increasing. (but) if we don't break down the patriarchy a little more Turkey will still be the same in 2007 as it was in 1970.