Update: Children's Rights in Turkey Database and Data Map

The database and data map of my research project on negotiations over child rights in Turkey is now available online. The project questions how child rights governance can become an instrument to consolidate power, control expectations, and legitimise an authoritarian regime both nationally and internationally. The accompanying database includes links to official UN and TR documents, as well as NGO documents and PM questions. Available here.

The project follows the implementation of the UNCRC in Turkey, with a specific focus on the timeline of the UNCRC reporting process, the government agencies responsible for this, and the Child Rights Strategy, the key text that defined Turkey’s roadmap. States that are party to the UNCRC have three major obligations, which are to implement, to report, and to inform. It appears that Turkey has been committed to fulfil the obligation to report, thereby sustaining the appearance and discourse of children’s rights. According to these reports, the government claims to have introduced a set of regulations and institutions for the implementation of children’s rights in coordination with various actors, including non-governmental organisations, unions, academics, and national and international organisations. To this day, the Board and the Strategy continue to be referred to in various platforms, including political speeches, public declarations, and negotiations with the international community. However, a closer scrutiny into these reveal that they are either dysfunctional, inactive, or even if they are active, the system lacks the necessary transparency, accessibility, and openness to the public.

The data map is based on a scrutiny of AKP documents, Official Gazette database, the news coverage of children’s rights in the Directorate General of Child Services and Independent Communication Network (Bianet) news archives, and various archives and databases the United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner database for the Committee on the Rights of the Child records, and the press releases archive of the Çocuk Vakfı, and the various databases of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, which allows access to written questions by the members of parliament, and also to minutes of general meetings and commission meetings.