Ertürk has a B.A. from Hacettepe University (1969) and a Ph.D. in Sociology from Cornell University: her thesis (1980) was on "Rural change in Southeastern Anatolia : an analysis of rural poverty and power structure as a reflection of center-periphery relations in Turkey".[4][5]
Career
Ertürk held posts at King Saud University (1979-1982), Hacettepe University (1983—1986) and Middle East Technical University (METU) (1986-1987) before joining the United Nations in 1997 to become Director of the International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW) in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic (1997-1999) and then Director of The Division for the Advancement of Women at UN headquarters in New York (1999-2001).[3] She rejoined the faculty of METU in 2002,[5] and was a professor in the Department of Sociology until her retirement, and was also the chair of the university's Gender and Women's Study Programme.[2][6] She was a Visiting Global Associate, Rutgers University, the Center for Women’s Global Leadership (CWGL)
and the Institute for Women’s Leadership (IWL) Consortium (15 Sept. 2017-15 April
2018).
In 2003, she was appointed as the United Nations special rapporteur on violence against women, and held this position for six years.[3] 2009-2013, she served on the Council of Europe Committee on the Prevention of Torture.
Ertürk, Yakın (2018). "Feminist advocacy for family law reform: international perspectives". In Afkami, M.; Ertürk, Y.; Mayer, A.E. (eds.). Feminist Advocacy, Family Law and Violence Against Women. Routledge. pp. 11–29. doi:10.4324/9780429438202-2. ISBN978-0-429-43820-2. S2CID158530374.
Shah, Rebecca; Guichon, Audrey (December 2006). "Putting the World to Rights: An Interview with Yakin Ertürk, UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, its Causes and Consequences". Journal of Global Ethics. 2 (2): 129–137. doi:10.1080/17449620601042599. S2CID143516084.