Say Yes, Spring 2004: Every Child Matters

Impoverishment, homelessness, exploitative employment, sexual abuse and exploitation, displacement and even escape from abusive family environments are examples of the many disadvantageous factors which are detrimental to the proper growth and development of children. All of these factors can lead children to come into contact with the law.

In almost all cases, children coming into contact with the law have low levels of educational attainment. They require protection and it is the obligation of the state and society in general to offer them help and the responsibility of the parents to ensure their care and protection.

Child protection issues are no less a priority in Turkey than they are elsewhere in the world and in recent years important progress has been made in areas of policy development, legislation and services for children in need of special protection.

Public awareness of child protection issues has also increased.

Yet, there are major gaps in the protective environment afforded children in need of special protection measures which need urgent attention, if they, like all Turkish children are to realise their rights to survival, development and full participation in society.

To begin with, violence towards children is undoubtedly the most effective cause of the displacement -- literal or psychological -- which pushes them to behave outside of societal norms, often bringing them into contact with the law either as victims, perpetrators or witnesses.

Violence towards children within the home is complicated by cultural norms and values which, by their nature, are difficult to change and it occurs on a scale anywhere between neglect to corporal punishment and outright abuse.

When parents are not helped to take better care of their children and the child’s development needs are not met, either at home or in school, the issue extends beyond the home to become the responsibility of society.

If society also fails to uphold the child’s rights then that failure puts the child in an untenable position whereby he or she, having been left to his or her own devices, can easily come into contact with the law at some point.

Even though children living or working on the streets are generally believed to be a potential danger, most children who come into conflict with the law are living with their families. More often than not, children living on the street are in danger; they are not a danger.

Numbers of children living and working on the streets are visibly on the increase everywhere. Bereft of a stable, nurturing environment, these children suffer levels of violence and live in conditions which are intolerable elsewhere in society. Some suffer from neglect for years. In the absence of a nurturing, protective environment, they are easy prey for more exploitation and abuse. As a result, they are likely to come into contact with the law at some point.

Although violence in schools is prohibited by law in Turkey, corporal punishment and peer abuse or bullying are widespread. A double bind occurs in the case of violence in school whereby the child’s education is inhibited by the threat of violence and, in more extreme cases, he or she can become ‘educated’ by example to see violence as a socially acceptable means of self-assertion.

There is little evidence to support systematic violence against children, but incidences of violence by the security forces and also in institutions have been reported. Such incidences are harmful to the general perception of an environment which should be a positive, protective influence on the children in it’s care. In order for the custodial environment for juvenile offenders to work, it must have the trust and confidence of the children in it’s charge.

The absence of concrete data on children in contact with the law means that it is difficult to isolate statistics on factors contributing to the phenomenon in Turkey -- although the fact that the problem exists is quite apparent.

In the past year, some 50,000 children were held by the police under suspicion of having committed a crime. Another 40,000 children came into contact with the police as victims of abuse or neglect. Roughly 2,300 children are currently being detained by the Ministry of Justice and 19,000 are under state protection in orphanages.

UNICEF’s main targets in juvenile justice include prevention of recourse to deprivation of liberty; protection of children from violence, abuse and exploitation; and advocating for restorative justice instead of a punitive approach whereby the rights of the victim are taken into account and instead of going through due process the offender is given the chance to understand -- and to take responsibility for -- the consequences of his or her action.

Basic human rights standards for all people coming into conflict with the law, including children deprived of their liberty, are:

• legal protection and due process guarantees;
• immediate notification of parents or guardians upon the apprehension of a juvenile, and the right of the child to be in contact with his or her family;
• deprivation of liberty should always be a measure of last resort and for the shortest time possible;
• the right to facilities and services that meet all the requirements of health and human dignity, and to adequate medical care, both preventative and remedial;
• the right to fair and humane treatment, including the right to visits, to privacy, to communication with the outside world and to time for daily exercise;
• opportunities for development should be maximised;
• provision of education (outside the detention facility by qualified teachers) suited to the child’s needs and designed to prepare them for return to society;

Children deprived of their liberty should not be deprived of their rights. More to the point, they need to be informed of those rights and they should be able to exercise those rights. In doing so, they should be brought to an understanding of their duties and responsibilities and how to ensure that they will not come into contact with the law again.

The UNICEF Factsheet on Children Deprived of Their Liberty and Juvenile Justice is available in pdf format. [PDF 823KB]

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