In order to protect children struggling to survive in geographies where war, poverty and misery prevail and to improve their conditions, the United Nations General Assembly signed the Convention on the Rights of the Child on November 20, 1989 and November 20 was recognized as “World Children's Rights Day”. The emerging data shows that Turkey not only fails to fulfill the obligations of the convention, of which it is a signatory, but also directly or indirectly leads to the violation of children's rights with the policies it develops.

 

AT LEAST 516 CHILDREN LOST THEIR LIVES IN 8 MONTHS

 

According to the data obtained by Fikir ve Sanat Atölyesi Derneği (FİSA) Child Rights Center through media monitoring; 516 children lost their lives in the first 8 months of 2024. According to the report, the highest number of child deaths was recorded in July; 20 suspicious deaths, 40 suicides, 15 gender-based deaths and 40 child labor deaths. 

 

CHILD LABOR DEATHS AND MESEM

 

“Child labor” is the leading violation of children's right to life. According to data from the Occupational Health and Safety Council (ISIG Assembly), at least 695 children have lost their lives in work murders in the last 11 years. The high rate of violations of children's right to life in the Vocational Training Centers (MESEM), which were launched in 2016 by the government responsible for protecting children's rights, draws attention. CHP Bartın MP Lawyer Aysu Bankoğlu recently announced during the budget talks that at least 44 children between the ages of 15-17 have lost their lives in MESEMs in the last year.

 

3 THOUSAND 532 CHILDREN IN PRISON

 

According to the Ministry of Justice, which responded to CHP Aydın MP Süleyman Bülbül's parliamentary question on the number of children in prisons on August 14, 3,532 children are in prisons as 'children dragged into crime'. One thousand 48 of them are convicts and 2 thousand 484 are detainees. The number of children in the 0-6 age group staying with their mothers in prisons is 759. 

 

612 THOUSAND 814 CHILDREN OUT OF EDUCATION

 

According to the Education Reform Initiative (ERI) Education Monitoring Report for 2024, approximately 612,814 children of compulsory education age are out of education. According to the report, 53.6 percent of these children are boys and 46.4 percent are girls, and this rate increased by 38.4 percent compared to the previous year. The report emphasizes that exclusion from education increases after the age of 15 and states that a total of 242,360 refugee and migrant children are out of education. 

 

2 MILLION CHILDREN IN DEEP POVERTY 

 

According to a study conducted by the Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey (TEPAV), 7.03 million children between the ages of 0-17 live in poverty. The research emphasized that 2 million of them are in deep poverty. According to the researches; While the poverty rate of infants was 36.8 percent in 2017, this rate increased to 41.4 percent in 2022, while the poverty rate of children increased from 40.8 percent to 43.8 percent in the same period. 

 

CHILD ABUSE

 

According to the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK), nearly 12 percent of the 242,875 “victimized” children who went to or were taken to law enforcement agencies in 2023 filed a complaint due to sexual abuse. This corresponds to approximately 29 thousand children. According to data from the International Children's Center, more than 1 in 3 of these investigations are not even prosecuted. According to these data; in 2023, 34 percent of the files on child abuse that were decided at the investigation phase at the chief public prosecutors' offices were decided not to prosecute. In 2013, this rate was 21 percent.

 

DEATH OF 5 CHILDREN IN IZMIR

 

While data shows that policies for the protection of children are not developed, the death of 5 siblings in Izmir due to a fire in the shack where they were staying revealed both poverty and the state's failure to fulfill its obligations. The Ministry of Family and Social Services, which has been the target of criticism, claimed to have provided 110 thousand TL in social aid to the family, but the claim was denied by Melisa Akçan, the mother who lost her 5 children, saying, “I never received any aid, let alone 100 thousand.”  Responding to criticism that the deaths of 5 children in a fire caused by the overturning of a stove was caused by poverty, AKP MP Özlem Zengin said, “You turn around and attribute everything to money”. 

 

OVER 1 MILLION WORKING CHILDREN

 

Member of Her Yer Çocuk Association Sedanur Uğur, stated that the most important consequence of poverty is that children cannot go to school and that school expenses cause great difficulties for children. Sedanur Uğur also stated that the poor quality of education also pushes children away from schools and said: “Ultimately, children are taken from schools and given to workplaces due to poverty. There are no clear statistics on children's rights. There are more than 1 million child laborers. There are children like migrant and refugee children who do not even have the most basic right to life.” 

 

Emphasizing that the Ministry of Family and Social Services and the Ministry of Education must allocate a budget for children to grow up in good living conditions, Sedanur Uğur said that children's rights are violated by policies of poverty and impunity.