Our press release titled “Violations of children's rights in EU Countries” has been released to the public, which is prepared from our report with the same title, for drawing attention to refugee children who have been subjected to violations of rights and whose fate is unknown in European countries.

Around the world, millions of people leave their home and try to take refuge in the countries they can reach because of the wars, conflicts, oppressive regimes and poverty. While the number of people leaving their country was 42 million in 2008, this number has reached 70 million by 2018. Today, only 22.5 million people have refugee status of 70 million population. According to surveys, at the present time one out of every 113 people around the world is displaced by force.

Our report focuses on the current situation of refugee children who constitute half of the refugees in the world and more vulnerable than other grups, and exposes rights of violations in Europe.

According to results of our research:
In 2015, the number of the children applied to the EU countries without accompanying family members and then missed was 96.465. In the same year, more than 1 million refugees tried to reach Europe by boat, and 3.771 of these refugees drowned. In 2016, this number was 5.096 and it was recorded as 3.139 in 2017. Nearly 33.800 of the 100.000 refugee and migrant children who arrived in Europe in 2016 had no relatives.

According to a study published by European Police Organization Europol in 2016, in the last 2 years, more than 10.000 children missed after they arrived in the EU. More than 350.000 children seeking asylum in Germany have been kept in months at unsafe and overcrowded shelters.

The situaiton of refugee children in Europe and the rights of violations they are subjected to:
It was observed that the nightmarish experiences of refugee children continued to multiply in Europe, where they came with the hope of a better life.

• Due to the devil-may-care manner of European authorities, refugee children have become the open target of human traffickers, prostitution gangs and organ merchants.
• Refugee children who are forced to work, debarred from educational chance and deprived of parental love, come to the point of losing their own values in consequence of the socio-psychological traumas they experienced.
• Refugee children become vulnerable of all forms of harmful habit and violence by reason of the fact that difficult conditions in Europe.
• The children’s mental, physical and spiritual development is damaged due to violence, sexual assault, maltreatment and similar methods of exploitation and this plight causes “generation loss”.
• Bearing in mind that the official figures are indufficient to reflect the truth, a comprehensive study on refugee children in Europe has become a necessity.
• Children who left their country due to insufferable conditions is sacrificed forongoing disputes of states and bureaucratic processes in Europe, where they came with the hope of a life away from chaos.
• In Europe, where is “far-right” ideology on the march, Islamophobia and zenophobia is perceived intensely, the fate of refugee children is unknown.
• In the matter of refugee children, human rights, equality and democracy are once again ignored by Europe for their own interest although they claim that “we are the protector all of notions”.

Europe’s responsibility towards refugee children;

• Turkey should serve as a model for Europe on refugee problem: More than 1.6 million refugee children live in Turkey and 1.3 million of these refugees have access to education. In the light of this statistics, the number of children attending school is almost equivalent to twice the total number of refugees in European countries.
• Measures should be taken to ensure that children who are triying to survive in refugee camps can continue their lives as healthy individuals, security measures should be tightened to prevent children from being subjected to physical and sexual abuse and sanctions should be made more deterrent.
• Nongovernmental organizations, opinion leaders, the culture-art world, academic circles and the media are required to bring this issue to the agenda with the studies speak volumes.

 

PRESS RELEASE / July 13, 2018 (Friday)
INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR WATCHING VIOLATIONS OF RIGHTS