“Children’s rights cannot be evaluated independently from universal human rights”

In his statement on the occasion of “20th of November Children’s Rights Day”, the European University of Lefke (EUL) Faculty of Law Acting Dean Assist. Prof. Dr. Mehmet Akif Poroy informed about the history of children’s rights and pointed out that in the TRNC, children’s rights are regulated by various laws, especially by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Poroy stated that until the end of the First World War, no declaration concerning children’s rights was published. At the beginning of the 20th century, when children were found to be categorized differently than human rights due to the fact that they were small and had different needs than adults, Poroy stated that the recognition of rights for them was on the agenda.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child, which was ratified by the United Nations General Assembly on 20 November 1989 and approved by 197 countries with the highest number of countries, has the characteristic of being a human rights document, Poroy said. “Every child up to the age of eighteen is described as a child” and added that “Children’s rights arising from the recognition of human rights and constitutional fundamental rights cannot be assessed independently of universal human rights. ”

There are more than 168 million child laborers

Poroy explained that children’s rights include the right of children to develop, train, and prepare for the future in a physical, spiritual, moral and intellectual way. In addition, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child states that children’s rights to life and development, education, health and health care, social security, protection from sexual exploitation, protection from armed conflict, freedom of expression of children were emphasized.

Poroy noted that the work on the development of social policies in the context of children’s rights was carried out and that the poverty and child labor issues were the main problems of social policy. According to International Labor Organization (ILO) data; Poroy emphasized that the number of child laborers exceeded 168 million, the economic insufficiency negatively affects the life, growth and development of children, the child in poverty has been deprived of many habits such as nutrition, health, education and so on.

Children and children victims of crime, must be trialed in special courts where pedagogues are involved

Poroy informed about the development of children’s rights in the TRNC and declared that the TRNC included the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child on the domestic law system in 1996 and became a part of the internal law in 2007 and added that ILO Convention on Emergency Measures for the Prohibition and Abatement of Bad Child Labor was regulated by the Constitution of the TRNC, the Children Act, the Child Criminal Act, and the Penal Code.

“Although these regulations exist in terms of legislation, unfortunately no children’s courts have been set up in the TRNC that allow children to be judged differently from adults,” Poroy said. Poroy noted that especially suicidal children and child victims should be tried in private courts with the involvement of pedagogues and specialists in this regard and should be subject to a trial in which the collective rehabilitated controlled freedom mechanisms are used instead of possible free-binding punishments.

Children are strived to be protected during the trials with The Juvenile Court Act

In Turkey, progress has been made in terms of children’s rights, particularly in terms of legislation, and that more efforts should be made to reflect on implementation, Poroy said, According to Poroy, children’s courts were established to solve problems by determining the problems caused by the juveniles, by taking the children’s personality and development into account, and by identifying the problems that caused the juveniles. Poroy stated that the Social Services and Child Protection Institution operates for children in need of protection in Turkey. Poroy stated that the General Directorate of Child Services at the Ministry of Family and Social Policies is also actively working to establish new service models and prevent any abuse of the child in order to ensure the congregation of children who have been involved in crime.

Finally Poroy said, “Children are the future of a nation. Poroy said that the importance of the development and upbringing of a nation will be as bright as the future of a nation. Poroy, for this reason, stated that the common and sensitive problem of every nation is to educate children well. It is an inevitable necessity and a common concern to provide the appropriate environment in which we can express children as “lives in good conditions” with a fairly relative concept, such as regular and necessary education, benefiting from health services and protection from warfare.