Åžafak Pavey
Şafak Pavey (* July 10, 1976 in Ankara) is a Turkish diplomat, politician and columnist. She is Member of Parliament for Istanbul in the Grand National Assembly as a member of the opposition Republican People's Party ( CHP). She was the first woman with a disability that has ever been elected to a Turkish Parliament, and is a member of the " United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities". 2012 Pavey was awarded the International Women of Courage Award from the State Department of the United States.
Background and education
Şafak Pavey was born as the daughter of Şahin and Ayşe Önal, a well-known journalist and writer. In 1994, Pavey and her husband moved to Switzerland to study art and film studies. 1996 lost Pavey in a train accident in Zurich her left arm and her left leg. A year later she went to London to pursue her university education. She studied International Relations at Westminster University and completed her post-graduate studies at the London School of Economics.
Career
Pavey served the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR ) and was responsible for foreign relations, and humanitarian aid in countries such as Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Lebanon and Syria. She worked as a spokeswoman for the UNHCR in Central Europe in Hungary and subsequently as Head of the Corporate Secretariat of the Human Rights Treaty the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
She was a columnist for the Istanbul -based bilingual Armenian-Turkish weekly Agos, and wrote more than three books. They also carried out joint projects with Harvard University, the Royal Academy of Arts in London and the Norwegian Design Council on blanket / universal design and displaced persons. The book 13 Numarali Peron ( "Platform number 13"), which was told to the experience of Zugunfalls and co-written with her mother Ayşe Önal, became a bestseller in Turkey. She also worked with the writer and Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi for the book " Refugee Rights in Iran " together.
After they had lived fifteen years abroad, Pavey returned back to Turkey in 2011 and went to for a parliamentary seat in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. She was elected in 2012 as a member of the Republican People's Party of Deputies for the province of Istanbul, which made her the first disabled members of the Turkish Parliament. As part of their parliamentary work, she is also a member of Turkey's EU accession Committee, the EU-Turkey Joint Parliamentary Committee, the Euro -Mediterranean Parliamentary Committee for the Mediterranean Union, the Euro -Med subcommittee on energy, water and environment, and vice- chairman of the Turkish Parliamentary Friendship Group with South Korea and Norway. She was appointed as a Deputy Chairman of the CHP, responsible for environmental and social policy.
Honors and Awards
- International Woman of Courage Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the United States.
- Outstanding Young Person of the World Award by the Junior Chamber International.