May 27, 2021 Ever since she took office in April as part of a mini cabinet reshuffle, Derya Yanik, Turkey’s minister for family and social affairs and the only woman in the cabinet, has been causing a stir among rights activists, from women’s groups to children rights advocates. The last straw came when the minister was quoted as saying that the increase in gender-based violence in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020 was “tolerable” — a remark that sparked protests calling for the minister’s resignation outside her ministry’s local branches in Istanbul, Ankara and Diyarbakir May 25.