JINHA

ANKARA – The initiative “Peace for Children Right Now” demonstrated in front of Turkey’s Ministry of Health today, calling on Turkey to begin peace negotiations and immediately implement the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Since the Turkish government began declaring 24-hour curfews in Kurdistan on August 6, 1.3 million people, among them 500,000 children, have been denied their basic rights to life and health. Today, children’s rights activists gathered in front of Turkey’s Ministry of Health to protest the violations of children’s rights in the state’s blockades and curfews.

According to Figen Paslı, of the Association to Prevent Child Abuse and Neglect, 58 children have been killed in Turkey in the approximately six months since the bombing of youth activists in the town of Suruç.

“Rozerin Çukur has still not been buried,” said Figen, referring to the 16-year-old girl killed by state forces in Diyarbakır’s Sur district five days ago, whose family has been denied permission to retrieve and bury her body. “Children are living with corpses. Their schools and the places where they live are being bombed, and their right to life is being taken from them.”

Figen said that what was happening in Kurdistan was not a “police operation” but a war and a violation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Turkey is a signatory. She called on the state to end the curfews; to comply with the Convention; to not allow perpetrators to go unpunished; and to begin a peace negotiations process.

(ödk/sy/cm)