Turkish Sign Language was officially recognized for the first time by the Article 15 of the Law No. 5378 on Persons with Disabilities dated 01.07.2005, which was published in the Official Gazette on 07.07.2005. In this context, the Turkish Language Association was charged with establishing of the Turkish sign language system. With a unanimous decision on the opening day of the "First Turkish Sign Language Workshop" organized by the Turkish Language Association on 07-08 June 2007 for the first time, June 7th was accepted as the "Turkish Sign Language Day".

In our country, there are many individuals with hearing impairment due to various reasons such as natal reasons or noisy working environment, advanced age and illness, and this number tends to increase day by day. For this reason, works on the protection and promotion of human rights of, and fighting against discrimination aimed at hearing-impaired individuals are important. Our country has implemented many legislative regulations in order to strengthen the system of rights and freedoms at the national level for individuals with hearing impairment. In this context, concrete policies have been developed to secure the rights of hearing-impaired individuals. Many international regulations to which our country is a party, especially the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and its Optional Protocol, have been made a part of our national legal order.

Our Institution, main mission of which is to protect the right to equal treatment of persons on the basis of human dignity and prevention of discrimination in exercising the legally recognized rights and freedoms, celebrates the Turkish Sign Language Day in its 16th year with the hope of ensuring the full and equal participation of hearing-impaired individuals in society and increasing their quality of life.

Respectfully announced to the public.