Who are the human rights for? Violations of the voiceless Kurdish children’s human rights in Turkish prisons

Veronica de Jesus Gomes[1]

Although this prison has been brought to the agenda only now, these kinds of events have always been witnessed and experienced by children who however abstained from telling what they went through. However, risking death, we have always held our head high and we have never surrendered ourselves and our will to the enemy[2].

(T.T., 20 years-old, a victim of different kinds of abuses when he was in jail in Pozanti and Kürkçüler E-Type prisons)

These words by a victim describe very well what lots of Kurdish children and adolescents have been experiencing in Turkish prisons for a long time. According to Selahattin Güvenç, the president of Mersin Association of Help and Solidarity with Immigrants (Göç-Der), these abuses aren’t new practices, once they have been happening since the establishment of Turkish Republic. He reminds the sexual abuses that many girls suffered after the massacre of Dersim, in 1938. Mr. Güvenç says that it is the government’s policy that used to take away these young people, subject and harass them. He compares both situations: “It took place 74 years ago in soldier’s homes where girls were forced to go, it is taking place today in prisons”. Bruinessen mentioned at his important article “Genocide of Kurds” that the official history of the Turkish military campaigns, made by Reşat Halli, did references to the brutal violence against children in Dersim and there is no effort of hiding it[3].

The article 25, § 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly, in Paris, on 10 December 1948, is clear and declares that “motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protect”[4]. But Turkey, that is one of the members of United Nations and helped to create this organization, in 1945, has been not respecting Kurdish children’s human rights.

Many of them have been arresting accused of being involved with political actions and they have been suffering different kinds of abuses in jail, as sexual ones, by the prison authorities and adult ordinary prisoners, who these children divide the same place with, despite the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Children[5], in the Article 37, declares that “every child deprived of liberty shall be separated from adults”. The Article 34 emphasizes that the Government is in charge of defending children of all sexual exploitation and sexual abuse.

Although that government has not been caring for the Kurdish children human rights, the Turkish Prime-Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, sent messages of support to an international congress[6] organized by the Parliament and the National Turkish Police, and supported by UNICEF, that took place last April, 2009, in Ankara. The event, entitled “The Children in Conflict with the Law”, discussed the situation of vulnerable children who have been in need of protection. It is absolutely curious because one of the points debated was exactly the problems that have been putting the children in danger in that country!

Some other Turkish ministers sent their messages of supporting to the event and Köksal Toptan, President of National Turkish Assembly, said this subject was one of the most important social problems and that they should find a solution to solve this. They look like to forget that the Turkish State is responsible for different kinds of abuses against their children, once lots of them have been injured, tortured and raped in prisons and others have been killed by the Turkish army and police, like Ceylan Önkol and Uğur  Kaymaz, both 12 years-old. So, who are these children that the Turkish ministers are supporting and defending? Of course they are not Kurdish ones! Who are the human rights for? Unfortunately, they are not for all the citizens of that country, as Kaymaz’s uncle said: “Are we not citizens of this country? Is our sin to be Kurdish? We wanted justice, but justice here is only for some people”[7].

It is a big contradiction because Turkey is a member of UNICEF[8], an organization that has as its main goal to protect children. But, unfortunately, the Turkish State doesn’t “put up with Kurdish children. Every day, a lot of Kurdish children are put in jail despite being innocent”, as a witness said. And what is the most tragic is that all these problems that they have been experiencing in prison don’t receive so much attention by the international media.

The first time I heard that there were so many Kurdish children in jail was in 2010. I still can remember how impressed I got when I saw so many photos of these children and the reasons why they were imprisoned. I didn’t know much about Kurds and their reality. I’ve learned something about them on books by myself. The other information I got on the university. But nothing compares to my experience with my Kurdish friends at the Internet. One of them, Ronay, was just 23 years-old, but he used to say that he would like to change the world.

This boy introduced me to the disrespect of the Kurds’ human rights by the Turkish regime, and the prejudice against them committed by the different members of that society. Despite the Article 30 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Children, determines that the children of the different ethnic, religious and linguistic groups have the rights of expressing themselves in their own language and practice their own religion, lots of them have been in trouble because of that. For the first time, I heard about the psychological violence perpetrated by some teachers against children and the silence of the local media.

These are Ronay’s words: “All associations are [against] us. For example, newspapers, polices, soldiers, schools etc… They always support strong people. Press is a supporter [of the] fascists… They [characterize] us as terrorists, but we aren’t terrorists. We want to live as all [the other] people. So, they have killed innocent Kurdish people on purpose and Press [used to hide] all the truth.” Besides, “newspapers support soldiers. So, they persuade all people”. In his opinion, the power of the Turkish media controls lots of Turks’ minds, hiding the tragic Kurdish situation, making them believe that Kurds are terrorists and they don’t deserve attention.

Many of these children have been imprisoned on charges of political activities. In other words, they are accused of being members of terror organizations and spreading propaganda for them. Besides, T.T., a witness of all these atrocities, said he was forced to be an informant to the police. As he didn’t accept it, “they told me that I would […] be held in prison for 15 years. I didn’t believe it until I was sentenced to imprisonment in the trial and sent to Kürkçüler E-Type prison”, in Adana. There, he was sexually abused and tortured by the soldiers. But things got still worse after he was transferred to Pozanti where he and other children and adolescents suffered different kinds of psychological and physical tortures.

The ordinary prisoners were sent to the same wards to apply torture on these “political prisoners”: “We knew that the children in A-5, B-1 and C-2 wards were being raped” by them. Anyway, “during the imprisonment, I always thought about Mazlum Doğan and Kemal Pir, who never resigned themselves despite all the pressure put on them during the hunger strike acts they staged. I tried to be as resistant as they were. We have never quailed, we will never quail”, says T.T.

Unfortunately these rapes and abuses didn’t stop yet and many Kurdish young people are still suffering this same kind of inhuman treatment in Turkey. The international media is still in silence, the authorities are still making themselves blind to the problem and the most of them don’t look after the Kurdish children. As my friend Ronay described: ‘All we need is love; all we get is war and tear.”