Turkey appears to be a country where all types of violence are widely seen within the society. Undoubtedly, among these types, the most irrecoverable one is the violation of the right to life. Wherever the right to life is commonly abused, it is harder to make the other violations visible and struggle against them.
The UN adopted the Declaration of the Rights of the Child on 20 November 1959, taking the account of that, unlike adults, children have different physical, physiological behavioural and psychological features; that they continuously grow up and develop; that a society has responsibilities on behalf of the child; and that everyone ought to undertake this with scientific methods. The United Nations’ General Assembly adopted and opened for signature the Convention on the Rights of the Child on 20 November 1989. This Convention is still the one that has the highest number of States Parties, having been ratified by 193 (of 195) countries. Turkey signed the Convention in 1990 and it entered into force in 1995, but with some reservations. The Convention was composed of 4 basic rights, namely no discrimination of any kind (Article 2), best interests of the child (Article 3), their inherent right to life and the right to survive and develop (Article 6), and the right o participate in decisions (Article 12)
Having made a few reservations on them, Turkey, also, ratified 19 binding agreements and 30 rights-based agreements adopted by the EU and the COE
As a state party, Turkey made some regulations and in 2005, despite some insufficiencies, enacted the Child Protection Law no: 5395. It also made some regulations in the Turkish Penal Code and the Civil Code. However, there is a problem with the implementations of both domestic and international laws in every respect in Turkey, which is also the case in the rights of the child. The data we have gathered for years has shown that Turkey has difficulty implementing national and international regulations and meeting the obligations approved by international conventions
58 years after the adoption Declaration of the Rights of the Child, today in 2017, we celebrate the World Children’s day resentfully because we know children are the most mistreated in Turkey and all around the World
We would like to tell those who are responsible for the violations of the rights of the child:
- Children are exposed to violence, sexual harassment and abuse inside prisons. Juvenile Detention Centres must be shut down.
- For the high benefit of the children who have to stay with their parents in prisons, their parents must be exposed to some other measures rather than arrest.
- The freedom of expression is of the child’s right to participate in decisions (Article 12), so all barriers standing against the use of this right must be lifted
- All types of protective and supportive measures must be taken on behalf of sexually abused children. Perpetrators must be brought to justice and punished.
- Child labour must be fought against and prevented
- Children ought to be supplied with equal, free, scientific, secular, and mother tongue based education.
- Necessary conditions must be provided for children to be able to live and develop their thoughts and cultures.
- Necessary precautions must urgently be taken for children affected by war about their rights to life, education, housing and health
HUMAN RIGHTS ASSOCIATION (HRA) DIYARBAKIR BRANCH
Commission on the Rights of the Child