• Publish Date
  26.05.2022
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European Gender Equality Award from UITP to Metro Istanbul!

Metro Istanbul, one of the affiliates of IMM, won the European Region Special Award in the category of "Diversity and Inclusion: Gender Equality" at the 6th UITP Awards organized by the International Union of Public Transport (UITP) for its efforts to increase women's employment and institutionalize gender equality in the workplace. UITP General Secretary Mohamed Mezghani presented the award to Metro Istanbul General Manager Özgür Soy at the summit held in Karlsruhe, Germany.

Metro Istanbul, Turkey's largest urban rail system operator was appreciated on international platforms for its work on gender equality. UITP, which has more than 1,900 members from more than 100 countries around the world, awarded Metro Istanbul with the European Region Special Jury Award in the Gender Equality category at the UITP Awards, which is being organized since 2011. Metro Istanbul is awarded for its efforts to increase women's employment and institutionalize gender equality in the workplace. 

“The rate of job application of women increased from %7 to %24.”
Speaking at the award ceremony held in Karlsruhe, Germany, Metro Istanbul General Manager Özgür Soy said that they host more than 2 million passengers a day with their fleet of 949 vehicles serving at 189 stations and on 16 lines. Stating that they provide employment to more than 5 thousand people, General Manager Özgür Soy said, “The change and transformation movement that we have been carrying out since 2019 with the aim of equal and fair representation of women in every stage of social life has started to bear its first fruits. Since 2019, the rate of female employees in Metro Istanbul has increased from 8% to 11%. Of course, we do not find this ratio sufficient. Our goal is to increase our female employee rate to 25% in the short term, and then to equalize it. We still have a long way to go, but we have also made significant gains. For example, while the rate of women working in technical and operational jobs in public transportation in European Union countries is below 10%, 18% of the engineers in Metro Istanbul are women. When we look at the recruitments we have made in the past 2 years, we see that more than 50% of them are women. For the first time in our 33-year company history, female station supervisors took office. While the rate of women who applied to our positions was 7% in 2019, this rate increased to 24% in 2021.

 “Women's promotion rate increased more than 19 times”
Stating that the number of female train drivers, which was 8 in 2019, increased to 143 by 2022, Özgür Soy said, “67.83% of the train drivers recruited in the last 2 years have been women. In addition, women have been very successful by entering all fields of business areas that were previously viewed with prejudice and were said that women cannot be successful. In this process, women were promoted more; more women began to take charge in supervisor and manager positions, in our senior management. 12.46% of women working in our company have been promoted since 2020. In 2019, this rate was only 0.64%. In other words, the female promotion rate has increased more than 19 times since 2021. All promotions and recruitments in our company are based on expertise and merit, we believe that no job has a gender, but you can be an expert. Metro women working in different roles today inspire all women. We are also happy and proud that our work is appreciated on international platforms and that we are deemed worthy of an award in the field of gender equality in a male-dominated industry all over the world. In order to be a role model for male-dominated sectors in our country and in the world, we will continue our work on this issue by saying, "Equality is here" in line with our strategy this year. In parallel with the gender equality strategy determined by our Mayor, Mr. Ekrem İmamoğlu, and by the IMM, we are taking firm and bold steps. I would like to thank all my colleagues, men and women, who contributed to this award by working shoulder to shoulder at Metro Istanbul.

About UITP:
Founded in 1885, UITP is a non-profit association of more than 1800 members around the world, consisting of public transport operators, central administrations, local governments, industry organizations, research centres, academicians and consultants from 100 different countries. UITP is the largest organization in the public transportation sector in the world and organizes studies to develop sustainable urban public transportation. Headquartered in Brussels, UITP has offices in Dubai, Casablanca, Tehran, Shenzhen, Moscow, Istanbul, Sao Paulo, Ivory Coast, Bangalore, Hong Kong, New York, Johannesburg, Melbourne and Singapore.

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