Roma Women's Acccess to Health Services in Turkey: The case of İzmir

Throughout the history, Roma living in various geographies have been perceived as the other and subjected to various forms of discrimination and exclusion with varying degrees. In the modern nation state formations, these discriminatory attitudes include violations of Roma's right as equal beneficiaries of the services in the fields of education, employment, housing and health care. While barriers against Roma's access to education, employment, housing and health care have been explored by scholars working on Roma in Turkey, there are very few studies taking gender as a category of analysis and approaching Roma women with feminist methodology. This thesis covers in-depth interviews conducted with 16 Roma women living in Karşıyaka district in İzmir where Roman intensely populated. While exploring Roma women's experiences in various stages of Turkish health care system, an attempt made to understand dynamics constituting identity of Roma women, various reasons these women seek to health care services, their practices of navigating the system as well as their coping strategies to deal with various forms of discriminatory attitudes if encountered. One of the conclusions of this thesis is that practices constructing the identity processes of Roman women affect the reflex of applying to public services with domino effect. It is also observed that biased attitudes of health workers and poor financial conditions are amongst the important barriers for accessing to health care services. It is figured out that Roma women are not able to enjoy health services equitably no matter how different their experiences are, and this situation is also shows itself even their pregnancy period. It is also understood that Roma women had developed coping strategies against discriminative attitudes and behaviors. Keywords: Roman women, health services, access, discrimination, social pariah