ICC International Chidren's Center

A- Children's and Young People's Participation	B- Capacity Building and Networking
C- Monitoring and Reporting Implementation of CRC	D- Mainstreaming CRC
Training Materials

D - Mainstreaming CRC

Please see annual report of 2012 for activities in 2012

Please see annual report of 2013-2014 for activities in 2013-2014

Turkey has been undergoing rapid development within the framework of its European Union candidacy and other international and national fora. Therefore, mainstreaming children’s rights, i.e. systematic integration and connection of children’s rights with all relevant areas of policy and action in Turkey is a crucial strategy to uphold for ICC to achieve one of its goals: better quality of life for children.

ICC pursues three basic strategies in mainstreaming children’s rights: providing consultations on children’s rights, working with the media to raise awareness, and publishing documentation and disseminating information on issues affecting the situation of children’s rights.

• Contributing to the Drafting Process of the New Constitution of Turkey

Since the 12 June 2011 elections, all parties represented in the Turkish Parliament have been supporting a new constitutional consultations process. ICC is working with children and other NGOs to contribute to this process and make sure that both children and their interests are well represented in the new constitution. ICC’s first contributions were mainly setting the scene for an open consultations process and ensuring that children would have opportunities to voice their issues to the Constitutional Consultations Committee at the Parliament. Both interventions from ICC were well received and children’s and ICC’s participation in the process were guaranteed. The consultations process will continue until the end of April 2012.

• Right to Education Working Group

The Sabancı University Education Reform Initiative has been running a project since 2008 on the right to education and the Initiative hosts an ad hoc reference group called the Right to Education Working Group (REWG). ICC has been a member of this group and supported its right to education indicator development initiative in 2010.

ICC provided knowledge and training expertise in Ankara, Diyarbakır, Mardin, and Istanbul for the REWG and developed the following indicator sets: general set to measure overall progress in realization of the right to education; child participation indicator set; right to play indicator set; right to health in education set; gender and right to education indicator set; violence in education settings indicator set.

•Education and Knowledge Transfer on the Rights of the Child

ICC spends a considerable amount of its efforts on knowledge sharing and education activities in the field of children’s rights. Some of the activities ICC contributed to in 2010 and 2011 are as follows:

• Draft Law on Provision of Assistance to Victims of Crime working group meeting organized by UNICEF Turkey and Ministry of Justice 22-23 January 2010,

• Writing “the rights of children to freedom of peaceful assembly” section of the report prepared by the Third Sector Foundation of Turkey (TÜSEV) and Civil Society Development Centre (STGM) in contributions during 21 January and 17 February 2010 expert roundtables. The report can be reached at the following website: http://www.tusev.org.tr/userfiles/image/orgutlenme_rapor_web.pdf

• Facilitating active involvement of child rights NGOs and reporting of the Technical Assistance and Information Exchange (TAIEX) conference and workshops on administration of juvenile justice from 13-14 April 2010. TAIEX is the instrument managed by the Directorate-General for Enlargement of the European Commission of the European Union to facilitate knowledge transfer from EU member states to candidate states,

• Participating in meeting for the Human Rights Defenders country strategy of the EU Commission Delegation in Turkey on 14 December 2010,

• Presenting “School Health Legislation from a perspective of rights to health and to education” at the First National School Health Symposium 21-22 May 2010,

• Participating in Preparatory Meeting for National Plan of Action on Violence against Children organized by Children’s Services Agency and UNICEF 13-14 December 2010,

• Provision of child rights training for Diyarbakir Local Agenda 21 member organizations 19-20 February 2011,

• Participating in and providing written contributions to Child Rights Congress in Istanbul 25-27 February 2011,

• As a part of the Turkish Delegation, participating in “Building a child-friendly Europe: Turning a vision into reality” Conference on the Council of Europe Strategy for the Rights of the Child 2012-2015, Monaco, 20-21 November 2011.

MEDIA

Working with print, audio-visual and Internet media to advocate children’s rights is highly important as it gives ample opportunities for getting the right messages across regarding children to the general public. For that reason, ICC gives special importance to developing a working relationship with media organizations. Following are some of the media activities ICC participated in:

•Education and Knowledge Transfer on the Rights of the Child

• 13 January 2010 Tek Rumeli TV News Program

• 4 April 2010 Radyo ODTÜ Civil Voices Program

• 23 April 2010 Bugün TV and Haber Türk News Channel

• 30 June and 1 September 2010 KanalB TV Child Health Program

• 10 February 2011 KanalB TV Child Health Program

• 25 April 2011 TRT AnadoluTV Colours of Life Program

• 30 June 2011 Kanal24 These are our Children Program

• 20 July 2011 TRT Radyo 1 Ear to Ear Program

• 5 September 2011 Free Radyo

CHILD RIGHTS PROGRAM PUBLICATIONS

• The early childhood rights indicators: A tool to monitor the Convention on the Rights of the Child and raise its profile globally. Early Childhood Matters: Realizing the rights of young children: progress and challenges No 113 (Bernard van Leer Foundation)

• November 2009 CRC 20th Anniversary Folder (in Turkish)

• The right of children to freedom of peaceful assembly, February 2010, TÜSEV-STGM (in Turkish)

• Child Rights op-ed in Sivil-İz Magazine October-November 2010, STGM (in Turkish)

• CRC General Comment 7 Indicators Framework and Manual: A Tool for Monitoring the Implementation of Child Rights in Early Childhood. Journal of Human Rights

• Child Rights Booklet prepared with children for children, February 2011 (in Turkish)

• Book Chapter: Progress in Children’s Rights in Turkey. The Rights of the Child, Social Workers Association Publication, 2011.

• Council of Europe Policy Guidelines on Integrated National Strategies for the Protection of Children from Violence (Turkish translation)

• Guidelines of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on Child-friendly Justice (Turkish translation)

• Compilation of General Comments of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child 2008-2011 (Turkish translation)

• Off the books! Guidance for Europe’s parliaments on law reform to eliminate corporal punishment (Turkish translation)

• Abolishing corporal punishment of children – Questions and answers, Council of Europe (Turkish translation)

• See Me, Hear Me - A guide to using the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities to promote the rights of children, Save the Children (Turkish translation)

• Getting it Right for Children: A practitioners’ guide to child rights programming, Save the Children (Turkish translation)

• Toolkits: A practical guide to planning, monitoring, evaluation and impact assessment, Save the Children (Turkish translation)

• The Evolving Capacities of the Child, Save the Children and UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre (Turkish translation)