c. 2006 Religion News Service

BERLIN _ Dusk is falling as Seyran Ates juggles signing last-minute paperwork prepared by her secretary and answering a reporter’s questions. Outside, a train rumbles past her law offices, located in Berlin’s trendy Hackescher Markt neighborhood.

She keeps a worried eye on her watch: Tomorrow, Ates travels to yet another conference, and she wants some time with her 19-month-old daughter.

Lawyer, author and single mother, 42-year-old Ates appears in many ways the prototype of a successful, female professional. But her work and her background attest to a more traditional and unequal culture within Germany’s Muslim community _ one in which forced marriage, domestic violence and even the occasional honor killing are chilling realities.

It is a culture that Ates, a soft-spoken, ethnic Turk, knows intimately.

She deals with it on a daily basis as a prominent women’s rights activist and lawyer in Berlin _ and she wrote about it in a troubling, 2003 autobiography, “A Journey into Fire.”

“`Journey into Fire’ is my life,” Ates says, explaining the title is a rough translation of her name in Turkish. “And also of my work, which is kind of a journey into fire. Because I handle issues which are very dangerous, which break taboos.”

Tracing Ates’ life _ she is the daughter of Turkish immigrants who fled her conservative upbringing, and the survivor of an assassination attempt _ “Journey” is among a growing genre of books about the repression of women in some Muslim societies.

The list includes “I Accuse,” by Dutch lawmaker Ayaan Hirsi Ali _ who penned the controversial movie “Submission” that led to the killing of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh. It also includes “Fundamentalism Against Women,” by prominent Egyptian writer Nawal el Saadawi, and the autobiography “Sold,” recounting the forced marriage in Yemen of British-born Zana Muhsen.

In Germany, two other prominent, ethnic-Turkish writers _ Necla Kelek and Serap Cileli _ have written about similar, firsthand experiences of forced marriage and domestic violence. Their works coincide with growing media and political attention on such issues; a recent German law, for example, now makes forced marriage a criminal offense.

Perhaps no phenomenon has horrified the German public more than scattered reports of honor killings, in which a male relative kills a woman for tarnishing the family’s reputation.

Last April, a 19-year-old Turkish man was sentenced to nine years in prison for shooting his sister in an “honor crime.” Altogether, at least 49 known “honor crimes” have taken place in Germany over the last nine years, women’s rights activists say.

“We’ve had six since September 2004,” Ates said. “The rate has been about the same for the last 20 years. But it’s only now that people are talking about it.”

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So far, Ates’ work as a lawyer has not included honor killings. Many of her clients are victims of domestic violence. A typical profile, she says, is an immigrant bride from a traditional family, who arrives here after an arranged marriage back home.

Most are Turkish, reflecting the overwhelming dominance of Turks among the estimated 3.2 million Muslims in Germany. Most come to her seeking a divorce.

“These women have never learned how to stand on their own feet, to decide for themselves _ who have not even taken a walk by themselves,” she said.

“And now, they have to decide how to create a new life for themselves. Rent a house, send their children to school.”

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Ates is no stranger to this confined world. Born in Istanbul, she moved to Germany at age 6, joining parents who came here as “guest workers” _ and like many Turkish immigrants, never left. “It was a typical, Turkish traditional family,” she says. “I’d go to school, go home and have to do a lot of housework. It was a patriarchal model at home. Women didn’t have the same rights as men.”

But at school, Ates learned about gender equality and democracy. She ran away at 18. Two years later, she co-authored her first autobiography, “Where Do We Belong? Two Turkish Girls Explain.”

`That was the question of my life at the time _ where do we belong? In Germany or in Turkey?” Ates recalls. “I wrote this book to show Germans how badly Turkish women live, how repressed we are.”

She is troubled at how little things have changed in the 20 years between her two books.

“In fact, it’s getting worse,” she says, “because we have an increasingly powerful Islamic movement. You can see it on the streets _ there are more head scarves.”

A non-practicing Muslim, Ates keeps her short, dark hair bare. As a single mother, she defies the norms of more conservative immigrants here. But as an established women’s rights advocate, she says, the Muslim community now ignores her eccentricities.

She has also reconciled with her family. “They are my biggest fans today,” she says.

But Ates has paid for her activism. In 1984, she was shot in the neck outside a women’s center in Berlin. She says the attack was not a personal one, but directed against the center’s work. Nonetheless, it took six years of rehabilitation before she could return to her law studies.

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“She is very courageous,” says Corinna, a psychiatrist for a Berlin shelter that deals with many Muslim victims of domestic violence. The psychiatrist withheld her family name because of the sensitive nature of her work.

Of Ates and the two other Turkish authors, Cileli and Kelek, Corinna adds, “They are role models for a lot of women. But they also live in danger. Because they are seen as foulers of the nest.”

Indeed, a series of excoriating articles by the Hurriyet daily _ the most popular Turkish newspaper in Germany _ denounced as sensationalistic the writings of all three authors. They accused Ates of insulting Turkish women, and of painting an unfair portrait of the Turkish community in Germany.

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Ates admits feedback from “Journey” has been mixed. “A lot of women tell me I’ve written their story,” she says. “But there are Turkish people who say my books are bad for integration, that the Germans will use it against us.”

Still, Ates is encouraged by one new development. “Young Turkish men approach me on the streets and say, `you are a tough lawyer, but you do a very good job. Take care,”’ she says. “I hear this more and more from young Turks and Arabs _ and not only the women.”

KRE/JL END BRYANTEditors: To obtain a photo of Seyran Ates, go to the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by subject or slug.

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