Seyran Ateş

Seyran Ateş

Biography

Seyran Ateş is a prominent feminist lawyer, writer and publicist. Born in Istanbul, Ms. Ateş has lived in Berlin since childhood. She began her career as a lawyer in 1997 after graduating from Free University in Berlin. Because of her feminist work and her engagement for equal gender rights, she has been the subject of growing hostility and death threats. She stopped working briefly in 2006 after she was violently attacked by the husband of one of her clients that occurred after a divorce proceeding. She resumed her activities as a lawyer in September 2007. Ms. Ates has written two autobiographies: Where do we belong? - two Turkish girls narrate, written in 1983, Ms. Ateş narrates her own story up until she separated from her family at the age of 18. Her second book, Great Journey into Fire, was released in 2003. Ms. Ateş wrote, The Multicultural Error – how we can live better together in Germany in 2007 in which she describes the coexistence of Germans and migrants. She provides an important perspective on the ensuing conflict of the integration of Islam in Europe and suggests possibilities of how this may be resolved. Ms. Ateş is a member of the plenary committee of the German-Islamic conference and the Ministry of Interior’s Summit Conference for National Integration. She is one of the most important voices in Germany in the struggle against forced marriage and honor killings. She has been fighting for many years for forced marriage to be made legally punitive.