"Turkey pays families to get girls into the classroom
Helena Smith in Ankara
Tuesday February 22, 2005
The Guardian
The Turkish government is paying families to 'encourage' them to send their daughters to school, as part of its efforts to bring the number of girls in education into line with European standards.
More than half of Turkey's young female population has no schooling, according to the United Nations children's fund, Unicef.
In the Kurdish-dominated east, most are forced to stay at home, unacknowledged by society from the day of their unregistered births. Girls and women account for the vast majority of the 7 million people believed to be illiterate in the predominantly Muslim state. "
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