EU top official urges Turkey to set up child courts

The EU-funded project, "Modeling Child Protection Mechanisms at the Provincial Level," was promoted in a press conference in Ankara on Friday. The project is the second phase of an earlier project on children, jointly sponsored by the U.N. Children's Funds, or UNICEF, and the EU.

"Turkish authorities should continue to establish children's courts with adequate staff in every province and strengthen coordination at the provincial level. They will shorten trial durations for children," said Tibor Varadi, deputy head of the EU Commission Delegation in Turkey, speaking at the conference.

"Efforts should continue to set up a children's ombuds office to improve children's rights and provide solutions for breaches," he said, adding that measures such as sound legislation, monitoring, reliable data, the development of children's rights policy and a sufficient budget are needed to improve children's rights.

Such tools can also lead to the prevention of violence against children and child labor connected to poverty, according to Varadi. The EU monitors children's rights in EU candidate countries and is ready to support Turkey both financially and institutionally in this respect, he added.

"This project we are launching today has already provided support in collecting data, doing research and developing minimum standards," Varadi added.

The EU-sponsored project, with a budget of 5.8 million euros, will take 15 months and be held in 12 provinces, including Adana, Ankara, Batman, Bursa, Diyarbakir, Istanbul, Izmir, Kocaeli, Mersin, Samsun, Sanliurfa and Trabzon.

It aims to ensure effective enforcement of the Turkish Children Protection Law, which took effect in 2005, as well as strengthen the capacity of institutions and professionals working in the field of juvenile justice and those in contact with children who have faced violence, abuse, neglect and legal cases, and those deprived of education.

Thousands of families will also receive parent training and counseling services on various issues, such as family communication, as part of the project. Catch-up education programs will be implemented for 50,000 children aged between 10 and 14 who never enrolled in or were forced to leave school and had to both work and attend school.

The project also aims to establish a coordination and monitoring system at the national and provincial level.

Reza Hossaini, UNICEF's Turkey representative, said the project was important as it was a multidisciplinary initiative that included more than 15 sectors and offered an integrated approach to the protection of children's rights. The project's methods and phases will provide consistent enforcement of children's rights, particularly through the creation of institutions.

He also expressed satisfaction that previous UNICEF-sponsored projects in other child-related fields had been embraced and implemented by Turkish authorities.

Photo: AA