Say Yes, Winter 2007: What the Delegates Said at the Children’s Forum

Çetin Kurucan, 15, Sivas

The most important thing about this Forum is that we’ve been informed about children’s rights. We need to learn how to apply what we’ve learned in our lives from here on.

That’s what the campaign is for — to help us get used to the idea of telling others.

Emine Toksoy, 17, Kırklareli

We don’t have an active Children’s Rights Committee in Kırklareli but I’m going to talk to my teacher about how we can get it going again when I get back home. I’ll tell my friends about children’s rights and try to get them involved.

I also think it’s really important to inform families about these meetings.

Şermin Turfan, 15, Diyarbakır

For me, the most important children’s right should be that every child has the right to live with their family. This is why people need to think very carefully before they have children. Too often, parents are careless about this, thinking things like if we haven’t enough money or the time to look after her, we can send her to an institution.

Of course the child will manage to grow and develop in the institution, somehow, but what does this do for her state of mind? Being abandoned like that?

Mirkan Özdemir, 13, Asmaya

The Forum is especially good for children whose rights are not being respected. We need to know our rights so that we can inform other children about their rights also.

Hopefully more children can have the opportunity to live in better conditions — a better environment.

Şevval İrem Lafcı, 11, Afyon

Children’s rights are important for us when we meet problems — it’s easy to be confused in difficult situations and knowing our rights makes it easier for us to see the problem and find the solution.

Yunus Uzun, 16, Sakarya

This is the best opportunity we could have, as children, to share our thoughts and opinions with the adults and carers around us. In the beginning, we mostly felt a little nervous but, as the Forum progressed, we generally feel more comfortable about expressing ourselves.

We really appreciate UNICEF: they are known all over Turkey for the help and support they give to poor children and those of us who don’t get to go to school.

Gamze Özdemir, 15, Çorum

It’s equally important for our families to learn about children’s rights as it is for us. I want to be a counsellor when I grow up so that I can teach families about children’s rights and why the whole family should respect them.

I live in an institution. If my family knew about my rights, I’m sure I would coming to the Forum — but I wouldn’t be coming from an institution. There’s a big difference.

Tahsin Basum, 12, Muş

The Children’s Forum teaches us about children’s rights and why everyone needs to respect them — including politicians, teachers, parents and children themselves.

Children’s rights are there to protect us, whatever happens because it’s hard for us to protect ourselves. In the future, when we become adults ourselves, we will be better able to raise children of our own and defend their rights and the rights of other people’s children.

Ömer Türkcan, 14, Nevşehir

For me, the most important children’s right is the ‘right to survival’. None of the other rights have any value if we can’t live.

Anyway, we need to learn all of our rights as children because we’re vulnerable and adults don’t always know what’s best for us.

It’s very important for us to learn our rights at the earliest age possible because the tree is supple when it is young and and our awareness deepens as we grow.

Everyone under eighteen years of age is a child. So I’m a child — and I have rights!

Başak Elçin Baş, 14, Amasya

Coming to this Forum and learning about children’s rights, I believe the future belongs to children and that’s what makes this work important.

If our country and our world looks after the children of today, then the future will be built on a stronger base. If adults respect our rights, they can learn more about us, find out what we’re good at, then they’ll respect us and hopefully treat us better.

Ömer Akdemir, 15, Siirt

It’s really vital for our generation to learn about children’s rights because we will teach what we know to the next generation and so on. That way, children’s rights will eventually become a standard that everyone is aware of and the world will be a better place for children to live in.

The rights of lots of children in today’s world are being frustrated by war, abuse and exploitation — people need to be informed not just about children’s rights but they also need to understand that our rights are there to protect us in situations that can harm us.

That’s why I think our right to protection is the most important children’s right.

Tuba Alkan, 16, Kastamonu

Some families don’t let their children express their opinions or talk things over so it’s important that parents learn about children’s rights.

Children’s rights concern everyone at every level of society. There are fifty–four articles in the Convention on the Rights of the Child: forty–two of these directly concern parents, children and the community and the other twelve concern the State as a guide to legislation. I want to tell my friends about children’s rights and what they mean for everyone — not just children — when I go back home.

Bilge Çelen, 13, Düzce

The most important right for children is the right to have an education and all girls should go to school the way most boys do. If our country is going to develop, girls and boys should have equal opportunities for education.

Selin Pınar, 11, Bursa

I want to be a children’s rights trainer in the future because I really don’t think that many people — adults or children — know much about children’s rights.

Salim Buzluca, 17, Adana

When we defend our own rights as children, others pay attention — not just other children, but adults as well. So we raise awareness of children’s rights even as we defend ourselves.

Children’s rights are a big influence on the law. For instance, it says that children under the age of fifteen can’t be sent to prison and I think that’s right, that’s the way it should be.

Canan Türker, 13, Muş

I would like families to take part in this Forum as well because I don’t believe they really understand what children’s rights mean. For instance, they react to our ‘right to speak for ourselves’ as if we’re going to argue against everything they say. When we try to exercise our right to participate they say You’re a child, you don’t understand.

Looking at the bigger picture, many children face worse things like being killed or injured in war because they can’t protect themselves. What I mean to say is that adults are always thinking of themselves and they never take account of what children think.

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