ELIF AKGÜL

Istanbul — Turkey's Parliamentary Justice Committee has approved a draft law introducing amendments to the Child Protection Law and several other laws concerning children in conflict with the law. The bill is expected to go before Parliament's General Assembly for a vote in the coming days.

According to the draft, penalties will be tightened for children between the ages of 15 and 18 in certain serious crimes, such as premeditated murder and injuries resulting in death or permanent disability, granting judges the authority not to apply the usual sentence reduction due to young age. The minimum and maximum limits for prison sentences imposed on children will also be raised.

The draft also includes preparing an individual intervention plan for each convicted child, transferring children with "good behavior" to educational reform institutions, restricting children's access to sharp and piercing tools, imposing a prison sentence on anyone who negligently leaves a firearm within children's reach, and, under certain circumstances, allowing a ruling to place children deemed to "pose a risk" into treatment institutions.

The draft has faced criticism from rights advocates and the opposition, who see it as reinforcing a punitive approach rather than investing in social policies and rehabilitation mechanisms that prevent children from drifting into crime, warning that granting judges broad discretionary powers could lead to violations of children's rights.

The government, meanwhile, affirms that the bill's goal is to prevent the exploitation of children by criminal organizations, strengthen public safety, and make the juvenile justice system more effective.

"A More Punitive Bill Than the Previous One"

Lawyer Cansu Şükürcü, representative for the issue of children in prisons at the Civil Society Association for the Penal Execution System (CİSST), recalled that a similar bill was introduced last year, but objections from civil society organizations led to the formation of a parliamentary inquiry committee to study it.

She said: "Since the first half of last year, there's been discussion around amending the juvenile justice system, and at that time a draft law was introduced as part of the tenth judicial package, but civil society organizations and professional associations objected to it, so it was withdrawn from the package. After 160 civil society organizations came together and demanded it be reconsidered, it was decided to form a parliamentary inquiry committee — and that was an important step, as the committee produced important findings on how to handle juvenile justice, crime prevention, and children's welfare. Unfortunately, though, the bill approved today by the Justice Committee is more regressive and more punitive than the one introduced last year."

"The Amendment Opens the Door to Redefining Childhood"

She explained that the most dangerous aspect of the bill is the amendment related to the age of childhood, since it doesn't stop at certain crimes but touches the very concept of childhood itself: "One of the most dangerous aspects of the bill is that it opens a crack in the entire child protection system. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child had recommended that Turkey not weaken the principle that anyone under 18 is considered a child, but today we see this crack widening. If the bill is approved, judges will be granted the authority to decide whether a child is treated as an adult — and this is extremely dangerous, because treating a child between 15 and 18 as an adult in certain crimes means abandoning the scientific basis of the concept of childhood and replacing it with judicial discretion, which creates a state of legal ambiguity."

She asked: "If a child is deemed an adult by a judge's ruling, will they also be granted the right to vote? Will they be treated as having full legal capacity? Could they later be considered an adult in a way that allows them to be married, even though that constitutes sexual exploitation?"

"Children in Prisons Will Become More Isolated"

Cansu Şükürcü also criticized the bill's provisions related to sentence enforcement, considering that they curtail the limited rights children currently have in prisons: "Currently, a convicted child, regardless of the crime or sentence length, is transferred to an educational reform institution. But the new bill requires the approval of the administrative and monitoring board for this transfer — and these boards are controversial even within the adult penal execution system, and the controversy grows even more when it comes to children."

She added: "After a child spends years inside prison, they're asked why they don't see their family, or why their violent behavior has increased — while the institution itself is responsible for how things turned out. A child might be transferred from Eskişehir to a prison in Ankara, and then their family's failure to visit is counted as a negative mark in their behavior assessment, without any consideration of how difficult it is for the family to travel, or the real reasons behind the weak contact."

She noted that children face major difficulties accessing lawyers: "The child doesn't know how to object to a disciplinary punishment, or who to write a transfer request to, or how to report being subjected to violence. Under such conditions, tying the behavior assessment to the decision of the administrative and monitoring board will make children more isolated and less able to access their rights."

"Security Cannot Be Achieved Through Prisons"

Lawyer Cansu Şükürcü stressed that achieving safety within the juvenile justice system cannot come through focusing solely on the imprisonment stage, but through strengthening social policies that prevent violence before it occurs: "If we only start talking about combating violence once a child reaches prison, that means we're already too late. If there's concern about violence, it must be addressed before the crime occurs — prisons are the last link in this chain."

She added that children's prisons are not a suitable environment for their needs: "The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child states that deprivation of liberty must be a last resort, and in Turkey there is no evidence that imprisoning children achieves safety or prevents repeat offending. Access to education is limited, contact with family is limited, and engagement with civil society is limited as well. Amid isolation and a culture of violence inside prisons, imprisonment cannot be considered a solution to the security problem."

Lawyer Cansu Şükürcü, representative for the issue of children in prisons at the Civil Society Association for the Penal Execution System (CİSST), concluded her assessment of the law by saying: "Last year, 160 civil society organizations called for a more comprehensive study, which led to the formation of a parliamentary inquiry committee. Today, we need a justice system that puts the child at its center, and we need this bill rewritten according to a comprehensive approach that takes children's rights and needs into account, instead of focusing on punishment."