Government Without Social Services Strategy
A journalist working for the tv programme Arena went undercover as a day care nanny in one of the biggest state run centers in Istanbul and managed to capture workers and managers physical and verbal abuse of children on camera.
Social Services and Protection of Children (SHCEK) declared an investigation into the alleged mistreatment and three workers were suspended immediately.
Last year, another such incident was descried at Malatya Child Care Center. Minister of in Charge of Women and Family Affairs Nimet Çubukçu promised a radical reform process -including a new legislation- into the social care system, improvements are yet to be seen.
A draft legislation had been established at the end of 2005 but couldn't make it to the agenda of the General Assembly. In addition, NGO's are critical of the draft text, demanding cooperation and acknowledgement by the government.
Even the existing legislation gives way for a solution, says lawyer and child rights expert Seda Akco.
"The real problem is government's approach to the issue. Social services must be restructured through a child-rights approach in line with the contemporary principles".
Such incidents of violence and abuse connote the value we attribute to our children as a society, adds Prof. Gaye Erbatur, Adana MP of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP).
Keeping the issue on public agenda by repeating parliamentary motions, Erbatur says the government neither has a general strategy nor a general action plan regarding social services and vulnerable children in particular.
She emphasizes the need for quality and specialty training for social workers, tighter supervision during hiring process and better working and living conditions for them.
Akco, on the other hand, proposes legal and practical changes that would enhance the checks and balances in the social care system.
"One option is the introduction of institutional guardianship. Each institution must be accountable for the children at its care, otherwise the interests of the child and the institution clash and managers favor the institution over the child's
Institutional care model must be reformed, as so many children of diverse psychological and physical needs crowded at large institutions causes problems. Foster parenting, house-type care institutors and adoption processes should be more forcefully introduced", said Akco.
Personnel qualifications, lack of independent inspection mechanisms and preventive systems and media's attitude are other areas of problem, she added.(KO/EÜ)