National Child and Youth Participation in Turkey

The framework for children's rights, including Turkey's responses, states:

• "Establish independent human rights institutions, such as children’s ombudsmen or commissioners with a broad children’s rights mandate." In response, in 2008, in collaboration with the Parliament, UNICEF established a Parliamentary Committee, namely the "Child Rights Monitoring Committee," which has direct access to children/ young people through a website and SMS (text messaging) line.
• "Ensure appropriate conditions for supporting and encouraging children to express their views, and make sure that these views are given due weight, by regulations and arrangements which are firmly anchored in laws and institutional codes and are regularly evaluated with regard to their effectiveness." In response, every year during the Child Rights Day on November 20, UNICEF brings child/youth representatives (1 girl and 1 boy) from each province of Turkey to the Parliament to discuss their concerns, opinions, and recommendations with Members of Parliament (MPs), its Speaker, Ministers, and other high level decision-makers. One of the important steps was to develop a national participation strategy with support of children and young people from provincial child rights committees.

For example:

1. In 2011, provincial representatives discussed the new Constitution of Turkey and submitted their list of recommendations to the Speaker.
2. In 2012, the theme was "concluding observations". The final declaration was submitted to the Speaker and Ministers and will be shared with the Committee on the Rights of the Child in Geneva, Switzerland, by government representatives, including:

• "Combat negative attitudes, which impede the full realization of the child’s right to be heard, through public campaigns, including opinion leaders and the media, to change widespread customary conceptions of the child."
• "Provide training on article 12, and its application in practice, for all professionals working with, and for, children, including lawyers, judges, police, social workers, community workers, psychologists, caregivers,; residential and prison officers, teachers at all levels of the educational system, medical doctors, nurses and other health professionals, civil servants and public officials, asylum officers and traditional leaders."

In addition, a 2011 initiative was the establishment of the International Youth Leadership Academy (IYLA) in Istanbul. In collaboration with Habitat Center for Development and Governance, the Academy is conducting international summer schools with young people from other countries (as a training centre for countries in Southeast Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, and the Caucasus) and national trainings to develop capacity at the local level (on democracy, rights, participation, communication, and more).

Children, Youth, Rights, Democracy and Governance

The efforts for increasing children’s participation in the "Framework for a National Child and Youth Participation Strategy in Turkey 2010 - 2015", prepared in May of 2010, focused on Article 12 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the right of the child to be heard, which states:

1. States Parties shall assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting the child, the views of the child being given due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child.

2. For this purpose, the child shall, in particular, be provided the opportunity to be heard in any judicial and administrative proceedings affecting the child, either directly or through a representative or an appropriate body, in a manner consistent with the procedural rules of national law.