NGOs Call For Action On Children Rights

A total of 16 NGOs in Turkey that defend children rights have issued a statement saying that the violation of children rights continues throughout the world and called on government officials and adults to fulfill their responsibilities to the new generation.

The organizations held a meeting on Monday in front of the Human Rights Monument in capital Ankara to issue a joint statement. Among them were Amnesty International (AI) Turkey, the Gundem Children Association, Social Service Experts Association and the Ankara Bar Association Children Rights Board.

Reading the statement on behalf of the organizations, Gundem Children Association's Sedat Yagcioglu said, "children in many parts of the world are subjected to torture and mistreatment, held in poor conditions, sentenced to death, killed or have a relative killed in wars and armed clashes, are subjected to terrible war crimes such as rape and torture".

Yagcioglu said that one of the most important consequences of war was the use of children as soldiers in conflicts, adding that many children were being displaced and forced into being refugees.

The statement also stressed that millions of children in Turkey and the world were neglected ad exploited due to poverty and forced to live on the streets.

Pointing out that children in Turkey faced the same violations and abuse children faced throughout the world, Yagcioglu said the November 20, 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child was signed by Turkey in 1990 and that the convention had gone into force in 1995.

Saying that since the Convention went into force important steps had been achieved, Yagcioglu added that there was still much to be done in the field of children rights and called on the government and all adults to work towards realizing and creating lasting policies for the four basic principles of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Yagcioglu said all discrimination against children needed to come to an end while lasting policies were created to protect the life, development and interests of the child as well as the participation of the child in society.

Meanwhile Amnesty International Turkey opened a stand during the event where signatures for urgent action letters were collected against the continuation of the death penalty for children in Yemen and the kidnapping of children in Uganda for their use as combatants. (KO/TK/II/YE)