Death, abuse, and being dragged into crime: Their childhoods stolen

Deniz Güngör

Today is November 20, World Children's Rights Day. Children will spend this day facing the risk of being driven into crime by gangs amid deepening poverty in the country, losing their lives in workplace accidents, and being married off at a young age. This year, perhaps more than ever, we have read news stories about children being driven into crime. In a country where even the very notion of children being “children” is now being debated, their rights as children are being violated. Instead of asking why children are being pushed into crime, the question being asked is, “How can we put them on trial like adults?”

While the government’s education, justice, and economic policies are dragging the country further into darkness with each passing day, it is once again children who are most affected.

HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS PUSHED INTO CRIME

According to data from the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK), there has been an increase in the proportion of children pushed into crime in the country. According to TÜİK, the proportion of children brought to security units as victims or pushed into crime in 2024 increased by 9.8 % compared to 2023, reaching 612,651. Of these children, 279,620 were victims and 202,785 were pushed into crime. According to TÜİK data, the number of children pushed into crime has been increasing over the last five years. The rate of increase between 2020 and 2024 was 80.8%.

According to data from the Civil Society Association in the Penitentiary System (CİSST), as of November 3, there were 4,682 children aged 12-18 in prisons, including 194 girls. The number of children aged 0-3 staying with their mothers was 434, while the number aged 4-6 was 388.

THE NUMBER OF ABUSE VICTIMS HAS INCREASED

According to official data, the percentage of child victims rose by approximately 56% between 2020 and 2024. According to TÜİK, 86.1% of child victims reported to security units were crime victims, while 13.8% were victims of incidents requiring follow-up. Between 2020 and 2024, the rate of child victims of sexual crimes increased by 41.1%.

IN THE GRIP OF POVERTY

The deepening economic crisis in the country has profoundly affected children this year as well. According to projections by the Ministry of Family and Social Services, the number of children whose most basic needs are not being met by their parents and who are at risk of being removed from their families could reach 195,000 by the end of 2025. The ministry's projections indicate that the number of children at risk of being separated from their families could reach 200,000 by the end of 2028.

The ministry's data showing the “number of children supported by their families through Social and Economic Support (SED)” for the 2025-2028 period is as follows:

• 2025: 195,000

• 2026: 195,000

• 2027: 196,000

• 2028: 197,000

9 YEARS OF SILENCE

The number of missing children has not been published by TÜİK since 2016. According to the latest TÜİK data shared 9 years ago, 104,531 children went missing. This year, it has been revealed that children under state protection are not being effectively protected. In Balıkesir, 13-year-old S.A., who was staying at the Ayten Burhan Erdayı Sevgi Evi, affiliated with the Ministry of Family and Social Services, went missing three times while under state protection.

Meanwhile, while children who went missing in the February 6 earthquake are still not found, Minister of Family and Social Services Mahinur Göktaş claimed in a statement on January 11, 2024, that there were no missing earthquake victims. According to the Association for Solidarity with Earthquake Victims and Missing Relatives (DEMAK), 38 children between the ages of 3.5 and 16 are still missing.

DROPPING OUT OF SCHOOL

According to data from the Ministry of National Education (MEB), 218,053 children dropped out of school in the 2024-2025 academic year. Of these, 81,263 were girls and 136,790 were boys.

In the 2023-2024 academic year, the number of students who dropped out of school was 263,599, of which 121,539 were girls and 142,060 were boys. Over the past 8 years, 1.6 million students have dropped out of school.

EMPLOYMENT, NOT EDUCATION!

According to TÜİK data, child labor has also begun to increase. Child labor, which was 16.4 % in 2020, rose to 24.9 % in 2024. Thus, 377,000 more children were added to the records as workers. The rate of child labor was 35.6 % for boys and 13.7 % for girls.

The Ministry of National Education, which shapes the education system in line with the demands of capital, has lowered child labor to middle school level. The middle school extension of the Vocational Education Centers (MESEM), which are the “legal cover” for child labor, became the Schools of Crafts. However, this was not enough for the capital. Responding to employers who claimed there was a “shortage of intermediate personnel,” the Ministry directed students who would repeat a grade to MESEM. In 2024, the number of children enrolled in MESEM reached 504,000.

Thus, the total number of registered child workers reached 1,474,000 in 2024. When children working off the books are also taken into account, the number of child workers is said to be close to 3.5 million.

THEY DIED WHILE WORKING

While all this was happening, children who were working continued to lose their lives in workplace accidents. The most recent known case was that of 16-year-old Alperen Uygun, who fell from the third floor of a building where he was working under the MESEM program into an elevator shaft and lost his life. Along with Alperen, the number of children who lost their lives in work-related accidents in the first 11 months of 2025 reached 81. According to data from the Worker Health and Safety Council (İSİG Council), 823 children have lost their lives in work-related accidents since 2013.

According to data from the Social Security Institution, 27,636 children aged 14-17 were employed and suffered work accidents in 2024. The number of work accidents in this age group was 11,000 in 2022 and 15,000 in 2023, with the 2024 figure being the highest in recent years.

CHILD MOTHERS AT A YOUNG AGE

According to the 2024 Birth Statistics report by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK), 5,952 girls aged 15-17 and 122 girls under the age of 15 gave birth.

Official data also indicates that child marriages continue in the country. According to official figures, 9,354 girls and 617 boys aged 16-17 were married in 2024.

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KENDIRCI, WHO WAS TORTURED, LOST HIS LIFE

Muhammed Kendirci, a 15-year-old child worker who was tortured and seriously injured by his apprentice master Habib Aksoy in a carpenter's workshop in the Bozova district of Urfa, lost his life. Kendirci, who was working as an apprentice at the workshop, was severely tortured by Aksoy and an unidentified person and was seriously injured. Kendirci was taken to the hospital and was being treated in intensive care.

After being taken into custody, the suspect Aksoy was released under judicial control but was re-arrested by the duty judge.

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WE MUST LOOK FOR THE PROBLEM IN THE SYSTEM

Kardelen Ateşçi - President of the Istanbul Bar Association Children's Rights Center:

"Children who are driven to crime are often children who have not been protected. Poverty, problems accessing education, neglect and abuse by caregivers, domestic violence, social marginalization, child labor... All of these are risk factors that enter a child's life in a chain reaction. Today, a child's involvement in crime is, in most cases, not a conscious choice; it is the result of a structural failure of the state, the school, the family, and social policies to protect them. However, this should not mean that children have no connection to crime through their own will. Yes, some children can become involved in crime of their own free will; but the critical point that must not be forgotten here is this: the will of a 15-year-old is not the same as that of a 30-year-old. Children are in a developmental phase; they make decisions before reaching full physical, mental, and emotional maturity. Therefore, it is neither scientifically nor legally correct for children to be treated as adults in the criminal justice system.

The weakness of social state mechanisms is the biggest shortcoming. Turkey still lacks a comprehensive child protection system. Inter-agency coordination is fragmented, and intervention processes are piecemeal. Yet, risk assessment mapping across the country is essential. Because protective systems that would support children at an early age are inadequate in practice, early warning mechanisms are not working in areas such as school dropout, absenteeism, domestic violence, child labor, and digital violence; thus, the problem continues to grow.

Indeed, as the Istanbul Bar Association Children's Rights Center, we are publishing a report on victims and children involved in crime between 2020 and 2025. The report shows that children in Istanbul continue to have intense contact with the justice system and that both victims and children involved in crime continue to need qualified representation. The findings clearly show that there are still serious structural problems in children's access to judicial processes. Therefore, if we want a permanent solution, we must focus on the system, not the child; we must look for the problem in the shortcomings of the system, not in the child.

We must strengthen protective and restorative justice approaches. I am referring to a system that aims to strengthen the rights and needs of children, not one that prioritizes punishment. Increasing the number of psychological counselors in schools, developing social policies, effectively monitoring child labor, implementing digital security policies... All of these are necessary steps to reduce children's exposure to risk. Therefore, the way to keep children away from crime is not only to punish them but to empower them and establish a child policy focused on their rights and needs.

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THEY MUST ENSURE A LIFE WITH DIGNITY

Ezgi ORAK - Member of the FİSA Children's Rights Center:

“MESEM is actually a result of today's Turkey. Children are struggling to breathe in an area squeezed by economic, political, and social conditions. We are going through a process where childhood is gradually disappearing, where being a child is constantly being replaced by something else, with practices that take children out of childhood and push them into production relations at an early age.

The violations occurring in MESEMs are just one aspect of this. On the one hand, there are these violations; on the other, there are the protocols signed by the Ministry of National Education (MEB) under the slogan of “teaching children a craft.” Opening craft workshops in middle schools, the spread of MESEM practices in prisons, presenting agricultural fields as areas for vocational technical education for children... All these steps collectively make the invisible or visible line of child labor more apparent every day. And the most severe consequence is the violation of the right to life.

Today, it would not be wrong to say that “child workers keep the system going.” A cheap and insecure child labor force, denied the right to organize, has long been one of the invisible pillars of the economy. This stands completely against children's rights, international agreements, and child protection principles. Providing children with a dignified life where they can enjoy their rights and freedoms is the responsibility of the state...

And today, on November 20, World Children's Rights Day... the trial will be held for the case opened regarding the incident in which 16-year-old Eren Dağ, a member of MESEM, lost his life. The right to life of children will have to be reminded once again, on a day like this, in a courtroom.

Note: This article is translated from the original article titled Ölüm, istismar ve suça sürüklenme: Çocuklukları gasp edildi, published in BirGün newspaper on November 20, 2025.