CHILDREN EXIST WITH THEIR RIGHTS
20 November 2023
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) is the most widely ratified human rights document in history and on the 34th anniversary of its adoption, violations of children’s rights are still committed both in our country and around the world, especially in the Middle East where war continues in full force. The convention, which was signed by 197 countries in 1989, aims to guarantee rights of children all over the world. States parties to the convention are encouraged to introduce amendments to their domestic laws under the articles of the convention.
The United Nations has not been able to fulfill its mission of maintaining peace all over the world, and it is still far from producing an effective solution despite the fact that thousands of children have lost their lives in wars and conflicts that are still raging in our lands. In Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Iraq, Ukraine, Armenia (Karabakh), and Turkey, especially in the Middle East, children are still being killed in wars and conflicts that have been going on for decades.
Committed to prioritizing children’s rights, Turkey signed the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1990, ratified it in 1994, and it went into force in 1995 after having been published in the Official Gazette. Turkey’s reservation to Articles 17, 29 and 30 of the Convention in 1995 led to the continuation of discrimination based on ethnicity, gender, religion, or culture among children living in Turkey. Turkey has not been able to achieve equality even before the law in terms of children’s rights, while violations of children’s rights such as violence and sexual abuse, underage forced marriages, unregistered labor under harsh working conditions, and occupational murders have not been prevented.
Children Forced to Become Subjects of War
The number of child casualties in Israel’s recent operations against Gaza was reported to be 4,506. This figure goes up day by day. We know that war in itself causes many violations of rights, especially the right to life, but the figures show us that children are the most affected by the Israeli-Palestinian war. Hundreds of thousands of children face problems in access to health care, food, and housing.
Similarly, the press reported that at least 4 children lost their lives and 10 children lost limbs in Turkey’s recent airstrikes against Northern Syria and the Rojava region. In addition, 22 children have lost their lives and 27 children have been injured as a result of being hit by armored military vehicles in Kurdish provinces in the last decade.
Children after the Earthquake
Following the Kahramanmaraş-centered earthquake of 6 February 2023 in Turkey and the violations that occurred afterward, we saw once again that the state does not have protective and preventive policies for children. The number of casualties announced by the authorities after the earthquake was stated to be 50,783 and the number of injured was 107,204. There was, however, no separate data on how many children lost their lives. Although there were many reports of missing children after the earthquake, the authorities repeatedly declared that “no child was missing in the earthquake zone.” Although 8 months have passed since the earthquake, no satisfactory explanation has been made regarding the allegations that more than 100 children are still missing. Further, allegations that children who lost their entire families in the earthquake were handed over to religious communities remain unanswered. By failing to take measures against violations before the crises, the state failed to fulfill its obligations under the UNCRC as well as its own domestic legislation.
There are still many problems for children living in the earthquake zones. Children live with their families in temporary shelters in the region where debris is still being cleared. Even in temporary shelters, children are not safe and protected and are deprived of access to their economic, social and cultural rights. The results of field surveys show that the number of children directly or indirectly affected by the earthquake is 4.5 million. The state must immediately fulfill its duties under the UNCRC so that children can continue their lives after disasters and move away from the impact of the disasters.
Refugee Children
The obligation of the state to prevent violations of children’s rights and to support the vital development of children is imposed by the annotation “without discrimination.” Refugee children must also have easy access to their rights as children. Children’s rights are the rights of all children without discrimination. Children must be immediately removed from war zones. The state must immediately fulfill all the requirements imposed by the UNCRC to alleviate the effects of wars, disasters, violence, and poverty.
Children Are Forced to Go to Work instead of School
The current economic crisis affects poor families and children the most. Unfortunately, the demand for school meals for children remains unheard.
Children affected by deepening poverty are not only deprived of many of their rights but are also deprived of their right to education, and are forced to work.
According to TurkStat’s latest data, Turkey’s child population is 22,578,378. According to the latest formal education statistics released by the Ministry of National Education (MoNE), there are 19,155,571 students in formal education (public & private) in Turkey as of June 2022. 1,738,198 of these students are in open education. Considering that 1,452,331 students were in open education in 2021, it is understood that more and more students are forced to leave formal education every year. 1,033,000 students were enrolled in the Vocational Education Centers program launched by MoNE as of 15 November 2022. Children enrolled in this program go to school one day a week, and the rest of the time they are forced to go to small and medium-sized workplaces with harsh working conditions. These are the workplaces where there is minimal or no supervision in terms of occupational health and safety.
Furthermore, according to the Child Labor Force survey released by TurkStat in 2019, the number of working children in the 5-17 age group was 720,000 after 2012. 65% of these children also attend school.
Education in mother tongue, an important demand in the resolution of the Kurdish issue, has also fallen far behind 2012. The “Living Languages and Dialects Course,” which is far from meeting the demand for education in mother tongue, was added to the curriculum in 2012, and it was regulated that it would be taught after Grade 5, provided that at least 10 students in each class elected the course. In practice, this right has not been rendered exercisable in practice as the authorities did not announce the course election times to parents and claimed that “there are no teachers, no teaching material; your child will be excluded if you elect [this course].” While 77,000 children elected this course in the 2015-2016 academic year, this number dropped to 20,000 in the 2021-2022 academic year. In 2023, only 50 Kurdish language teachers were appointed among the 45,000 teachers appointed.
Religion classes heavily focused on Sunni Islam are still compulsory. The 2007 ECtHR judgment against Turkey in the case of Hasan and Eylem Zengin v. Turkey has not been fulfilled to date. Children of families belonging to the Alevi faith continue to attend compulsory religion classes.
Children in Conflict with Law
According to data collected by TurkStat, the number of incidents involving children applying to or brought to security units increased by 20.5% compared to 2021, and reached 601,754 in 2022. In these incidents, 259,106 children were brought to security units as victims, 206,853 of them with the allegation of committing an act defined as a criminal offense in law, 100,490 of them to apply for information, 16,499 of them because they were reported missing and later found, 12,684 of them with the allegation of committing a misdemeanor, and 6,122 of them for other reasons. Currently, there are a total of 2,522 children in prisons in Turkey, 840 of whom are convicted and 1,682 of whom are detained. These data reveal that the number of children in conflict with law is increasing every year. Moreover, detention measures continue to be applied in juvenile proceedings. Children entering the criminal justice system are further traumatized at every stage and are forced to experience all the difficulties of long trials. It is observed that no preventive, protective and restorative measures are taken for children entering the justice system in accordance with the principle of the best interest of the child.
Children with Disabilities Are Excluded in All Areas of Life
According to 2022 official data, there are 381,129 children with disabilities between the ages of 0-19 in Turkey. The requirements of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which was signed by Turkey and imposes obligations on state parties to eliminate discrimination against persons with disabilities and improve their living standards, have not yet been fulfilled. Turkey has not implemented regulations to make all public buildings and public transportation accessible to persons with disabilities for 18 years. Despite all the challenges, disabled students who wish to access educational environments continue to face serious discrimination and exclusion.
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
The bleak picture of the rights of the child in Turkey reveals that children’s rights remain only on paper. Article 1 of the 1984 UNGA “Declaration on the Right of Peoples to Peace” reads as follows: “[T]he peoples of our planet have the sacred right to peace.” The first and most important step in building a happy and peaceful future for our children is to create a peaceful environment free from all forms of violence. Children need peace the most. To this end, we call on the authorities to:
- Lift their reservations on Articles 17, 29, and 30 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child immediately and introduce accessible regulations for every child in domestic law;
- Draft a “National Action Plan for the Prevention of Violence against Children” in consultation with children’s rights and human rights organizations to prevent all forms of violence against children;
- Close juvenile prisons and initiate restorative programs for children in conflict with law, supporting their participation in social life and empowering children; immediately rescind the plan to build juvenile penitentiary institutions and juvenile wards;
- Fully implement all measures, especially on accessibility, to include children with disabilities and their families in social life;
- Ensure the involvement of children in decision-making mechanisms on all issues related to children and establish mechanisms for children to present their opinions and suggestions;
- Share disaggregated data on children in the earthquake region with the public immediately, as well as information on the number of children still missing, and the situation of children who have lost their families;
- Provide food and housing support at all levels starting from elementary education; remove the obstacles preventing different ethnic groups from receiving education in their mother tongue; make religious education elective;
- Provide economic and social support to children and their families to prevent child labor; effectively inspect workplaces employing children;
- Make the allocation of resources for children in central and local government budgets mandatory, and ensure rules that these resources are spent accordingly;
- Establish a specialized commission on the rights of the child within the Grand National Assembly of Turkey to protect and guarantee children’s rights.
HUMAN RIGHTS ASSOCIATION
CENTRAL CHILDREN’S RIGHTS COMMITTEE
Cover visual: UNICEF Belgique @ https://www.unicef.org/world-childrens-day