This thesis analyzes the right to reconcile work and family responsibilities which is recognized as crucial in women&amp / #8223 / s participation in the labor market. When women can not fully enjoy their right to work due to the burden of unequal gender division of labor, they become more vulnerable to poverty and male violence which impede them from developing their basic human capabilities. States should acknowledge that this is a human rights problem which is deriving from women&amp / #8223 / s overburden as primary caregivers. In order to overcome this problem and transform the patriarchal structure of the market and the family / state intervention in the private sphere is required. Two alternative reconciliation models are examined. The first is the equality driven model that encompasses parental leave and childcare facilities, which necessitate positive intervention of the state and more likely to trigger structural change. The other is the flexibility or market driven model which is based on part-time work and homeworking strategies. They target women&amp / #8223 / s participation in the labor market without necessarily leading to any change in the gender divisionof labor. The effectiveness of these strategies is analyzed within a feminist jurisprudence method. While the focus is on the international framework, including the EU Member States, the specific case of Turkey is also considered. Given Turkey&amp / #8223 / s socio-economic particularities, childcare largely depends on kinship relations and social policies regulating women&amp / #8223 / s labor market participation are market driven. The data shows that women in Turkey do not equally enjoy their economic and social rights. Therefore, by examining the international framework for right to reconcile work and family responsibilities, it is hoped that a case can be made to call on Turkey to abide by its international obligations to grant this right.

This study focuses on the relationship between global economy and women&rsquo / s labor within a feminist standpoint by examining the personal and occupational experiences of immigrant women doing domestic work in Turkey. The main concern of this study is to investigate how working and living experiences of immigrant domestic women workers in Turkey are shaped by their illegal worker and immigrant status. The aim of this study is to listen to the personal experiences of immigrant domestic women workers from themselves, and understand their working conditions and social life experiences in Turkey. There emerged a trend in trading domestic workers between the poor and rich countries since 1990s where many parties, including governments, illegal recruitment agencies, and individual employers benefited. The high unemployment, poverty, shortfalls in living standards, and loss of government-sponsored public services due to the IMF policies implemented by the governments of developing countries severely affected poor and women. For their family survival, women of developing countries forced to migrate in order to seek domestic work in richer countries, where there is a high demand of middle class women for domestic workers. On the other hand, since domestic work is devalued as informal work, policy-makers do not pay sufficient attention, and provide a legal framework regulating the recruitment process and protecting the rights of immigrant domestic women workers. Therefore, immigrant domestic women workers are in a vulnerable position and open to exploitation due to their illegal and immigrant status. Turkey has been one of the domestic worker exporting countries since early 1990s mostly from post-Soviet countries. However, she neither has bilateral agreements with the sending countries nor a legal framework protecting the rights of immigrant domestic women workers. Hence, immigrant women are subject to arbitrary treatment and exploitation both in their workplace and outside, and remained invisible.