Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan pledged to spare his country the dangers of demographic decline, stressing at the same time the need to preserve the role of the family and praising the achievements made by women in various fields.

This came during his participation by video call in the conferences of the women's wing of the ruling Justice and Development Party, which are taking place in a number of states.

"Our population growth has almost halved, and we may witness a decline in the population not so long ago if this situation continues," Erdogan said.

"Europe has long been facing a threat of demographic decline, and we will not allow Turkey to face the same fate," he added.

President Erdogan stressed the importance of women in preserving the concept of the family, noting that the collapse of the family in the West began with the commodification of women and their exclusion from their basic sacred role in society.

He indicated that there are attempts to impose the same thing on Turkey through schemes targeting the family through television screens, movies, music, the Internet and other media.

He emphasized that preserving Turkey's demographic features goes through defending the concept of the family, not material encouragement (to increase childbearing).

The population of Turkey reached 83,614,362 people in 2020, an increase of 459,365 people over the previous year.

The rate of population growth in the country decreased to 5.5 per thousand in 2020, from 13.9 per thousand in 2019, according to the data of the Turkish Statistics Authority.

Turkish women

On the other hand, President Erdoan pointed out that women in Turkey have enjoyed equal opportunities in the field of education in the true sense of the word during the era of the Justice and Development Party, which has been in power since 2002.

He also pointed out that the largest percentage of women represented in parliament was witnessed in Turkey in the same period as well.

He pointed out that there are 54 women in the representative bloc of the Justice and Development Party in the 600-seat Turkish parliament, at the moment.

He also indicated that there are two women in the cabinet.

Erdogan said that the women's wing of the Justice and Development Party exceeds 5 million and 300 thousand women, which is close to the total membership of women in all other parties combined.