Our People

Prof Kadriye Bakırcı

Fellow, Visiting Fellow

Head of Labour and Social Security Law Division, Hacettepe University

Faculty of Law

PhD in Law, MA, BA (Istanbul)

kadriye.bakirci@kellogg.ox.ac.uk

Professor Kadriye Bakirci is a law professor (former Chair of the Employment/Labour and Social Security Law Division (2012-2022), Private Law Department (2012-2016 and Ethics Board (2015-2016)) at Hacettepe University Law Faculty in Türkiye. She is a member of the Istanbul Bar Association. She is a certified tutor for the training of the trainers for the Council of Europe Programme on Human Rights Education for Legal Professionals. She serves as a member of the Advisory Board and the Committee on Violence in the World of Work of the National Human Rights and Equality Institution of Türkiye. Currently, she is a visiting academic at the University of Oxford Faculty of Law and a Visiting Fellow at Kellogg College.

She received her BA, MA, and PhD degrees from Istanbul University Faculty of Law. She has been a visiting academic at several institutions including the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (London University), the London School of Economics and Political Science Law Department, Cambridge University Faculty of Law, Stockholm University Faculty of Law, Columbia University Faculty of Law, Lund University Faculty of Economics and Management Business Law Department, and the International Labour Organisation (Geneva).

She is a Fulbright, British Council, and Swedish Institute Scholar. She has been also awarded grants by the London School of Economics and Political Science, the National Scientific and Technological Research Council of Türkiye, the National Higher Education Board of Türkiye, Istanbul Technical University, Hacettepe University, and the Koc Foundation; and awarded visiting fellowships by Wolfson College (Cambridge University), and Kellogg College (Oxford University).

She is a national expert for Türkiye of the European Labour Law Network, and the European Network of Legal Experts in Gender Equality and Non-Discrimination (Her last country report published by the EU is available at https://www.equalitylaw.eu/country/turkiye).

She is a holder of a plaque of honour from the Ankara Bar Association for her contribution to women’s human rights in 2019. She is the leading person for female students of Türkiye to enter the Maritime Faculty of the Istanbul Technical University for the first time in 1999 since the Faculty’s establishment in 1884. When she was elected as the representative of the research assistants of Istanbul Technical University (1998-1999), her petition concerning the inequality against women students was approved by the ITU’s Governing Body and Senate. She is a founding member and current member of the Advisory Board of the Women’s Studies Centre in Science, Engineering and Technology of Istanbul Technical University which is the first and the only Women’s Studies Center in the science, engineering, and technology field in Türkiye. She is a member of the Ankara Bar Association Centre for Legal Aid for the Victims of Violence. Formerly, she was a member of the Executive Board of the Women’s Studies Centre of Hacettepe University, a member of the Women’s Employment Coordination and Monitoring Board of the Ministry of Employment, a member of the Human Rights Board of Governance of Istanbul, a member of the Committee on the Elimination of Violence Against Women and

Children, and Honour Killing of Governance of Istanbul, and a member of the Human Rights Board of the District of Beyoglu.

Her areas of expertise include comparative labour and social security law, business and human rights, the impact of new technologies (such as digitalisation) on labour law, the future of work, new forms of work, gender equality and non-discrimination, violence, and health and safety in the world of work, human rights of women, children, disabled, and migrants, work-related whistleblowing, human trafficking, human smuggling, international migration, forced migration, forced labour, exploitation of labour, women’s unpaid work, precarious work, modern forms of slavery, poverty, access to justice, and climate change.

She is an editorial board member of the International Journal of Discrimination and the Law, Pravni Vjesnik Journal of Law and Social Sciences of the Faculty of Law Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek, an Advisory Board member of the Economics and Society Journal. She is a peer reviewer for several international and national journals.

She has 11 Turkish (3 of them joint), and 2 English (1 of them joint) books, 26 English, and 9 Turkish book chapters, 11 English (2 of them joint), 1 French and 17 Turkish articles, 5 English and 26 Turkish papers, 4 English flash reports, 5 (2 of them joint) unpublished Turkish reports, 3 joint guidebooks, and she reviewed 2 English (international) books. She also wrote many column articles for newspapers, delivered many public talks, and seminars, and gave many media interviews. Some of her publications were commissioned or funded by professional NGOs, International and European institutions, and Turkish Research Council.

Her publications have been cited by scholars and the High Courts in Türkiye, received great publicity from the media, raised awareness on several issues such as gender equality, anti-discrimination, violence in the workplace, and child labour, have led to campaigns by the workers’ organisations and NGOs, and changes in Turkish legislation. She actively took part in reforming Turkish legislation and worked for the Turkish Prime Ministry as a draft legislator on the Public Officials Bill in 2003 and worked for Employment, Family and Social Policy, and Justice Ministries as a draft legislator on the revision of the Employment Act from a gender perspective, the reconciliation of working and family life (2011-2013), and the Victim’s Rights Bill (2016-2018). She is one of the drafters of the Anti-Discrimination, Harassment, and Mobbing Guidelines of several universities including Sabanci, Bosphorus, Istanbul Technical, and Hacettepe Universities. She has developed several new undergraduate, LLM, and PhD modules regarding women, children, anti-discrimination, migrant rights, new technologies (including digitalisation) and the law, and the future of work in Türkiye (1998-2020).

She has participated in 25 projects, as a national legal or gender expert, consultant, investigator, reporter, discussant, etc, funded by the UN, UNDP, UNICEF, ILO, COE, EU, World Bank, SIDA, Raoul Wallenberg Institute, and Swedish, Norwegian, and Dutch Embassies in collaboration with several ministries of Türkiye to promote human rights awareness and/or give seminars for public officials including governors, judges, lawyers, workers’ organisations, political parties, and NGOs since the 2000s.

She devotes a considerable amount of time to voluntary work. For instance, she is a founding and current member of the Women’s Labour and Employment Initiative Platform and also the Women’s Labour Researchers Network. She has been the scientific and advisory board member of several trade unions and was a pro bono legal adviser for home workers during their struggle to establish their trade unions in Türkiye, etc.

She is a member of various international and domestic scientific and occupational organisations, and human, women’s, and children’s rights networks/groups,

She has been taking various administrative positions and board memberships since 1998 at the Universities she has been working. Currently, she is a member of the Executive Board of the Health and Safety Centre, the Executive and Advisory Boards of the Disability Centre of Hacettepe University, and a member of the Quality Assurance Committee of Hacettepe Law Faculty. Formerly she was the Chair of the Labour and Social Security Law Division, the Chair of the Private Law Department, the Chair of the Education Committee of Hacettepe University Law Faculty, and the Chair of the Ethics Board of Hacettepe University. She was the Coordinator of the Employee-Employer Relations Commission and the Coordinator of the Civil Servants’- Employer Relations Commission of the Istanbul Technical University as a legal consultant/mediator/negotiator; and the Coordinator of the Library of the Istanbul Technical University Management Faculty.