Children in Need of Special Protection Measures
In our country,
another problem as important as health, education and working children
is children in need of special protective measures. This concept which
is called, at the same time, children in difficult circumstances or
children at risk covers children at a very
large
extent. This group also includes abused children, street children,
juvenile
delinquency ,child labour and other children who are in similar
conditions.
Labour of
children, street children, children living in the street and child abuse
constitute a large problem in our country. Besides population increase
and migration mentioned above, economic reasons and bad income
distribution, lack of access to compulsory primary education on the part
of the relevant age group as a whole, insufficiencies in vocational
training system and legal discrepancies as to minimum age for work and
insufficiencies in controlling appear as another important problems.
Half of girls and one
forth of boys
leave
school after the first step primary education. A large part of these
children, in general, enter into employment at a small age actively; be
employed as unskilled workers, with a low salary or unpaid or without
any social insurance, because they do not have any vocational training,
due to economic deficiencies or workforce needs of their families. For
the age group12-14, while the rate of working boys approaches 31%, girls
to 33%, these rates reach 56.8% for boys and 45.1% for girls for the age
group of 15-19 (State Planning Organization, 2000).
Of the children who
have participated in the active employement, while a large part of the
ones who live in
rural
areas work as unpaid family workers in the household enterprises their
families run, the other part have to work as day laborer or monthly paid
far away from their families and without any social security
On the other hand,
children who work in urban areas, generally, are employed in small
enterprises, under unhealty conditions, doing heavy work, with low
salaries, in long hours and without having access to social security
opportunities. In the cities, there are, also, children working in the
street in great number the quantity of this is not definitely known.
This group comprises the largest risk group among working children.
Children working in the street are under the threat of every danger and
exploitation that workin in the street brings.
Moreover, children
working in agricultural sector are
observed to be
out of the scope of employment regulations and social security.
It is
found
that
the
number of children in need of protection (0-18 age group)
(expecting 2% of being at protective phase) out of total population was
524.141 in 1993. However, this
figures
are estimated to be much lower than the real figures. Even today, in the
report concerning the conditions of children and women in Turkey,
covering the year between 2001-2005, the number nearly
500.000 is mentoned and no exact number is given. Of the population (
according to the rate of 10 % ), 2.710.000 is assumed to be
disabled.
In
relation to meeting
the needs of care and protection of the children who are in need of
protection, it appears that, a development to the desired extent has not
been
obtained. While no improvement has been attained in terms of the number
of children who are in care and protection of institutions, in the
effort to add dynamism to making the families adopt children and to
foster family practices, campaigns have been launched, but the desired
level which has been aimed could not have been attained .
According to the
paraghraph (b) of
Social
Services and Child Protection Agency
(SHÇEK) Law no 2828,
“Children in need of Protection” refers to children who are under
risk in
terms of physical, emotional and moral development and personal safety
and are in the following conditions:
1.
Child without mother and/or father,
2.
Child with undetermined mother and /or father,
3.
Leaved by their mother and /or father,
4.
Child neglected by their parents and having all the risks of
using drugs and alcohol and being used in sex .