Say Yes, Winter 2007: In This Issue

Growing Up in Poverty

Although it is easy to appreciate that low income families have less access to material goods than families in higher income brackets, it is not generally understood that children from low income families are more likely to suffer poorer health, are less likely to perform well in school and are more likely to be withdrawn from or to drop out of the education system. As adolescents, the same children are more likely to get married early and in cases of long term poverty there is a high probability that they will have lower or non–existent incomes in adulthood.

It is even more difficult for the general public to understand the extent to which children suffer excessive stress, emotional deprivation and psychological maladjustment when they are exposed to persistent poverty.

Raising public awareness of the effects of child poverty was one of the main objectives of the Ministry of Labour and Social Security’s Conference on Preventing Child Poverty in Ankara in June 2006.

Read more about Child Poverty in Turkey.

Growing Up in the Street

The growing incidence of children resorting to street life is one of the clearest symptoms of child poverty in Turkey. Extensive rural to urban migration over recent decades means that two thirds of the population — some 48 million people — are now living in urban centres and metropolitan areas. As a result, local councils are generally under strain to find adequate resources for the provision of essential services — particularly health and education — in low income areas. Extremes of income inequality, poor housing, high rates of poverty and low rates of formal employment have further compounded the dire circumstances of low income families to the extent that many rely on their children to augment the family income by working.

Children often manage this onerous responsibility by working informally on the street and the numbers of those doing so have noticeably increased since 1990. Accurate statistics on children currently living and/or working on the streets do not exist but as many as 80,000 have been estimated.

Concern over the vulnerability of children on the street led to the formation of an inter–ministerial committee in 2004 under the ægis of the Social Services and Child Protection Agency (SHÇEK). A New Model of Service Provision was subsequently developed with the support of UNICEF and the EU, which SHÇEK plans to implement in ten pilot cities where the problem is most acute.

Read more about Children Living and/or Working on the Streets in Turkey.

Growing Up with Rights

Following the National Children’s Congress in 1999, SHÇEK established a Children’s Rights Committee in each of Turkey’s eighty–one provinces, engaging children in a nationwide campaign to promote awareness of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) over the course of the following year.

Turkey’s First Children’s Forum was organised with support from UNICEF to round off the campaign in November 2000. Delegates from the committees gathered in Ankara under the theme of ‘the Right to Participate’ and discussed how they could best defend their rights while respecting the rights of others.

The Children’s Forum has since become an annual event in the calender for everyone who is interested in children’s rights awareness. This year, the Seventh Children’s Forum convened in Ankara and marked the occasion by launching a new campaign to promote awareness of the CRC on International Children’s Rights Day, 20th of November.

The new campaign has been planned and will also be led by the children themselves in twenty–five selected provinces.

Read more about the Seventh Children’s Forum.