‘It Gets Harder to Access Mechanisms to Protect Children’s Rights During Pandemic’

"Say 'Stop' to Child Abuse"

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Since the World Health Organization (WHO) declared novel coronavirus (Covid-19) a pandemic on March 11, 2020, there has occurred a significant decrease in the number of lawyers appointed by the İstanbul Bar Association regarding children's rights.

Within this context, the Children's Rights Center of İstanbul Bar Association has released a statement regarding the problems about accessing mechanisms to protect children's rights during the pandemic.

According to the statement, from March 10 to April 20, 2020 (in the last 40 days), lawyers have been appointed from İstanbul Bar to attend to the legal proceedings of 178 sexually abused children in İstanbul.

The Children's Rights Center of the Bar has briefly said,

"The World Health Organization (WHO) declared coronavirus (Covid-19) a pandemic on March 11, 2020. Various measures have been taken in our country to prevent the spread of the virus and the work orders of some public institutions have been changed accordingly.

"It can be said that these changes are serving a legitimate purpose; however, these changes lead to problems in mechanisms of protecting children's rights. The drastic change in the statistics of İstanbul Bar Association's Code of Criminal Procedure (CMK) Service regarding the number of children, for whom lawyers are appointed, supports this argument."

According to statistics, from February 1 to March 10, 2020 (in 38 days before the pandemic was declared), lawyers were appointed for 464 children subjected to sexual abuse. Similarly, while this figure was 508 from March 10 to April 20, 2019, it was 375 in the same period in 2018.

* The number of lawyers appointed by İstanbul Bar Association CMK Service to attend to legal proceedings about sexual abuse at police stations

Comparing these figures, the Children's Rights Center of the Bar has underlined that there current figure is much lower than previous years, when the work orders of public institutions were not yet changed.

Noting that "these figures are a warning to look deeper into the reasons why the number of victim children has dropped so radically," the Center has reiterated that "this significant decrease is considered to be mainly caused by problems about accessing protective mechanisms."

Within this context, the statement has underlined that "children are also victimized inside their homes during the pandemic." According to the figures cited in the statement, from April 4, when a curfew was declared for the ones aged 20 and younger, to April 20, İstanbul Bar Association appointed lawyers to attend to the legal proceedings of 22 children subjected to sexual abuse and 27 children subjected to wilful injury.

Concluding the statement, the Children's Rights Center of the Bar has emphasized the importance of a proper functioning application mechanisms for the protection of children in this pandemic period "when the release of people without taking adequate measures following the newly enacted law on criminal enforcement have started to cause problems and the curfew for the ones aged younger than 20 is still in effect."

Accordingly, the Center has called on the authorities to take additional measures to protect children's rights. (AÖ/SD)