SECURITY FOR CHILDREN: THE WORLD FAILS TO SECURE AND PROTECT SYRIAN CHILDREN
ÇOCUKLAR İÇİN GÜVENLİK: DÜNYA SURİYELİ ÇOCUKLARI KORUMA VE GÜVENLİĞİNİ SAĞLAMADA BAŞARISIZ

Author : Mehmet Murat PAYAM -- Nurullah SELÇUK
Number of pages : 369-383

Abstract

Wars, armed conflicts and civil unrests all over the world but especially in the Middle East continue to threaten the security and lives of people. The affected people from these bed situations are generally the children. As all human beings do have, every child also has “a right to protection” from any hazards regardless of his ethnic, legal or social status. But unfortunately, Syrian children are now facing the largest humanitarian and protection/security crisis in the world and the world fails to protect and secure them. Defined as the “worst humanitarian disaster since the end of the cold war,” the Syrian civil war has to date claimed over 8.000 documented killings of children under eighteen years of age. Over half of the people displaced by the Syria crisis are children and every two minutes, another child from Syria becomes a refugee. Within Syria, the conflict continues to have a severe impact on children’s well-being, with children facing violations of their rights on a daily basis including family separation, no access to education, physical and sexual violence, military recruitment, torture and kidnapping, limited access to basic services, lack of birth certificates and the resulting psychosocial distress. It is strongly proposed that the world must act to save a generation of traumatized, isolated, insecure and suffering Syrian children from catastrophe. If not moved quickly, this generation of innocents will become lasting casualties of an appalling war. For this purpose in this paper, although there are many key child protection/security issues in Syria, the current situation and problems of Syrian children are presented in the context of the rights to protection from family separation, recruitment into armed forces and groups, exploitation and gender-based violence, physical harm and psychosocial distress. Finally, as it is believed that no violence against children is justifiable and all violence against children is preventable, some possible recommendations to fight for the rights of the Syrian children were put forward.

Keywords

Syria, Basic Rights, Security, Child Protection, Refugee Children

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