A new report by the İstanbul Medical Chamber’s (İTO) Child Rights Commission has highlighted a broad range of challenges affecting children in Turkey, including poverty, malnutrition, child abuse, inadequate housing, and limited access to healthcare and education.
The report draws attention to insufficient access to both preventive and therapeutic healthcare services for children, starting from the prenatal stage. Intensive care units, it notes, are inadequate in both number and quality. The authors criticized the Health Ministry’s response to growing vaccine hesitancy and anti-vaccination propaganda.
“The ministry is failing to meet its responsibilities, reinforcing the public perception that vaccines are dangerous. The legal system leaves vaccination to parental discretion,” the report stated.
Nutrition problems
Access to healthy food is presented as a nationwide crisis. “Hunger is not only a lack of calories but also the inability to access nutritious food,” the report said, stressing that malnutrition in the first three years of life has a significant impact on cognitive development.
According to 2022 data from the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat), only 12.7% of children eat meat, chicken, or fish daily. The report also pointed to systemic issues, saying, “Due to profit-driven food production, additives, preservatives, pesticides, and adulterated products have become the norm, posing long-term threats to public health and children.”
Housing issues and earthquake aftermath
The report noted that poor housing conditions have developed into a broader shelter crisis. According to TurkStat, 32.6% of the non-institutional population, excluding those in schools, dormitories, or barracks, experience heating problems due to poor insulation. Additionally, 17.3% reported having rooms in their homes that receive no natural light.
Eurostat’s 2021 figures indicate that 39.1% of people in Turkey live in overcrowded housing. The Child Foundation reported that 4.5 million children were affected by recent earthquakes in Turkey.
Structural issues in education
Problems in the education system, from early childhood through university, were also outlined. The report noted that religious education has been integrated into the curriculum from preschool, often filling the gap left by a lack of public daycare.
“Quran courses have expanded with unqualified educators, exploiting families’ need for childcare,” the report stated. It also criticized the increase in vocational and religious high schools at the expense of general high schools and warned that the special education needs of children with disabilities have been left to under-regulated private rehabilitation centers.
Rise in child abuse cases
Citing official data, the report stated that in 2023, courts opened more than 66,000 cases involving at least one child victim of sexual abuse. This number has doubled since 2015.
“Early and child marriages are on the rise,” the report said. Of the 259,106 children who came into contact with law enforcement in 2022, 89.8% were crime victims, and 10.1% were involved in other incidents. Nearly 12% of these were related to sexual abuse—amounting to roughly 29,000 children.
In 2023, 242,875 children were either brought to or contacted by law enforcement as victims.
Drug use and child involvement in trafficking
The report expressed concern about the increasing use of drugs among children. According to the General Directorate of Security, 35.4% of individuals who have used drugs at least once fall within the 15–24 age group.
The data also showed that 5% of users were high school students and 10% were university students. Of those admitted to inpatient rehabilitation centers in 2019, 12.1% were aged 0–19. In 2018, there were 154 drug-related deaths among those aged 15–24; in 2019, this age group accounted for 33.3% of all drug-related deaths.
“Some children who use drugs are pushed into drug trafficking. Allegations that Turkey is both a transit and a market in the drug trade are deeply concerning,” the report added.
Juvenile crime
The report also examined the growing number of minors involved in criminal proceedings. According to TurkStat, the number of cases involving children brought to law enforcement increased by 20.5% in 2022, reaching 601,754.
In 2023, 178,834 children were brought in under suspicion of criminal involvement.
According to the Human Rights Association’s 2024 report, 4,018 children aged 12–18 are currently held in Turkish prisons. An additional 759 children under age 6 are living in prison with their incarcerated mothers.
“If the current system continues to produce crime and abuse, then juvenile crime must be recognized as a structural issue that requires deep social transformation,” the report said.
Policy recommendations
The report called for increased budget allocations for children, stronger social support systems, and expanded public services. It recommended providing free, nutritious meals in schools and during holidays, banning child labor, and ending programs such as MESEM, which it claims enable child labor under the guise of education.
Education, the report stated, should be multilingual—incorporating minority, migrant, and refugee languages as well as international ones. It also emphasized the collective responsibility to support children with disabilities.
It called on the state to withdraw from religious education and stop using the Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) to impose a single religious perspective. “Religious education should be handled by religious communities themselves,” the report said.
The commission also urged comprehensive policies to prevent child abuse and neglect and advocated for language and integration programs specifically designed for migrant and refugee children and families.
“The primary purpose of the juvenile justice system should not be punishment, but rehabilitation, support, and prevention,” the report concluded. (NÖ/VK)
