Changing How Children Experience Justice
Across Türkiye, EU-funded and UNICEF-supported ÇABA Project is supporting lawyers and bar associations strengthen child-friendly legal aid—ensuring that children who come into contact with justice system are better protected, heard and better supported.
For a child entering the justice system, legal procedures are only one part of the experience. The way adults listen, communicate, and respond can shape whether a child feels safe enough to speak, understood enough to participate and confident enough to trust the process. That is why strengthening the people who represent children is just as important as strengthening the system itself.
Through the Improving the Capacity of Lawyers and Bar Associations on the Promotion, Protection and Monitoring of Children's Rights (ÇABA) Project, co-funded by the European Union and UNICEF and implemented by the Union of Turkish Bar Associations with UNICEF’s technical support, lawyers across Türkiye are building the knowledge and practical skills needed to provide child-friendly legal aid.
The project, implemented from March 2023 to October 2026, aims to strengthen the capacity of lawyers and bar associations to promote and protect children's rights while enhancing coordination, monitoring, and reporting mechanisms within the justice system. It has also established Child Rights Centres in five pilot bar associations (Adana, Aydın, Batman, Erzurum Trabzon), creating permanent structures that support child-sensitive legal services and strengthen local child protection efforts.
For many lawyers, the biggest change has been a shift in perspective: seeing children not only as individuals who need protection, but as rights-holders whose voices and views must be respected.
“As lawyers, we have always known that we have a responsibility to stand beside children. But this project helped us understand children not only as individuals who need protection, but as individuals who are holders of rights,” says Melek Küçük, a lawyer and ÇABA trainer at the Trabzon Bar Association. “That perspective changed the way we approach cases. We now have a stronger understanding of what actions we can take, which measures we can request and how we can better advocate for children throughout the process.”
Building a network of child rights advocates
At the heart of ÇABA’s approach is a sustainable model that goes beyond individual training. Through a comprehensive training-of-trainers programme, lawyers from across Türkiye were equipped not only to strengthen their own professional practice, but also to share their knowledge and experience with colleagues. These trainer lawyers have become multipliers of child rights expertise, helping to ensure that child-friendly legal practices continue to expand beyond the lifetime of the project.
“The value of this project is that it does not stop with the lawyers who receive the training. Every lawyer we reach can go on to support many more children,” says Çağla Özgür, a lawyer and ÇABA trainer. “By strengthening lawyers, we strengthen children’s access to justice.”
For participating lawyers, the training has transformed how they work in practice. They report being more confident in requesting protective measures, advocating for social assessments, following up on decisions and ensuring that children’s rights are respected throughout legal proceedings.
“We used to talk about the best interests of the child. Now we talk about it with a much deeper understanding,” says Elif Çakır, a lawyer and ÇABA trainer from the Trabzon Bar Association. “We know what to ask for, when to ask for it and how to communicate with children in a way that makes them feel heard and supported.”
The project has also created a growing community of lawyers who continue learning from one another after formal trainings end. For Sefa Uslu, Member of the Executive Board of the Trabzon Bar Association and Head of its Child Rights Centre, this peer-to-peer support is one of the project’s most lasting contributions.
“One of the strongest outcomes of the project is the network it has created. Young lawyers now contact us before meeting a child and ask what they should pay attention to. After only a few cases, they begin developing the same awareness and confidence. This knowledge continues to spread.
Creating lasting spaces for children’s rights
Another important outcome of the project was the establishment of Child Rights Centres within pilot bar associations. Beyond providing legal guidance, these centres create dedicated spaces where lawyers, children and families can access information, coordinate with institutions, and strengthen child protection efforts at the local level.
As part of the project, one of the pilot Child Rights Centres was established within the Adana Bar Association and it was located inside the courthouse itself. Positioned on the same floor as the prosecutor’s office and immediately next to the waiting area where children stay before giving their statements, the Centre enables lawyers to intervene at the very moment children need support. For Tuğba Tuna, Coordinator of the Child Rights Centre, this proximity has transformed the Centre from a place that provides legal guidance into one that actively safeguards children's rights in real time.
“Being located inside the courthouse has completely changed the way we can support children,” says Tuğba Tuna, Coordinator of the Child Rights Centre at the Adana Bar Association. “Our Centre is on the same floor as the prosecutor’s office, right next to the waiting area where children stay before giving their statements. This means we can step in immediately whenever a child needs support.”
According to Tuna, this close proximity allows the Centre to respond to issues that might otherwise go unnoticed. “Sometimes a child needs an interpreter, but no one has identified the need. Sometimes a misunderstanding with law enforcement can be resolved simply by reminding everyone to look at the situation through the lens of the child’s best interests. Because we are there, we can work together with the institutions involved before problems escalate.”
One experience has stayed with her. “A child once had a disagreement with a police officer while waiting. Before I even had the chance to intervene, the child looked at the officer and said, ‘I will report you to the Child Rights Centre.’ The situation calmed down immediately. For me, that was a powerful moment. It showed that children already know we are here, that they trust us, and that they see the Centre as a place where someone will stand up for their rights.”
Another pilot Child Rights Centre was established within the Trabzon Bar Association, this time inside the Bar Association building itself. As the main point where lawyers regularly visit and citizens seek legal aid services, the Centre has become highly visible and easily accessible. Its location enables the Child Rights Centre to engage not only with children and families in need of legal support but also with lawyers on a daily basis, raising awareness of children's rights, encouraging referrals, and fostering closer cooperation across the Bar Association.
For Gizem Yazar, Coordinator of the Child Rights Centre at the Trabzon Bar Association, the centre has transformed child rights work from an effort dependent on individual commitment into a more structured and sustainable mechanism.
“Before the centre, our child rights work was carried out through the commitment of individual lawyers in Trabzon. Now we have a dedicated space where lawyers, families, and, when needed, children can reach us. We can coordinate our work more effectively, follow processes more systematically and build an institutional memory that will continue into the future.” The centre has also helped create a more welcoming environment for children who seek support. “Creating a place where children feel comfortable matters. When children come in and say, ‘This is such a nice place,’ it shows us that they feel safer and more at ease.”
The experience of pilot bar associations demonstrates how institutional structures can strengthen children’s access to justice by bringing together lawyers, local authorities, service providers, and child protection actors.
A lasting impact beyond the project
Looking ahead, participating lawyers believe that ÇABA’s impact will continue to grow beyond the project period. The training modules developed through the project, together with the network of trainer lawyers and Child Rights Centres, provide a foundation for continued learning, collaboration and child-friendly legal practice across Türkiye.
“The training created a visible change,” says the coordinator lawyer from the Child Rights Center of Adana Bar Association. “More lawyers became interested in children’s rights work and joined our Center after completing the programme. We have also received encouraging feedback from institutions such as the Child Monitoring Center and law enforcement authorities, who have observed examples of good practice in the work of lawyers trained through the project.”
By investing in lawyers, institutions and collaboration, the ÇABA Project is helping create a justice system where children are not only represented but recognised as rights-holders whose voices matter at every stage of the process.
