Layık Topcan Mesutoğlu: Property, planning and gender in the Cyprus peace process
Layık Topcan Mesutoğlu, a Turkish Cypriot town planner and mediator with the Mediterranean Women Mediators Network, reflects on her contribution to the Cyprus peace process, drawing on her experience in the property working group during the negotiations led by Mustafa Akıncı.
Drawing on more than forty years of peacebuilding work, Layık examines how competing expectations between original owners and current users make an agreement difficult, linking the issue also to environmental pressures and continued urban development. She also reflects on how gender perspectives were rarely integrated into negotiations on property, inheritance and compensation, despite having emerged through her work with women’s organisations and her participation in the 1996 Habitat Conference.
The episode is part of #HerStories, the podcast of the Mediterranean Women Mediators Network, produced in collaboration with IAI and Women In International Security Italy, dedicated to the voices of women mediators and peacebuilders from the Mediterranean.