Turkish lawmaker makes press statement alongside daughter with autism

ANKARA

A lawmaker from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) has conducted a press statement in parliament with his daughter with autism in an effort to draw attention to the hardships that people with autism face in education. 

“My daughter won the high school exam and we went to the school with great excitement. They told us that a special class was formed in another high school, so we accepted it and went there. However, the principal said ‘we don’t have the platform, we can’t find classes for normal children, so there are no classes for these children [with autism].’ What I mean is that children are being registered to schools but don’t have any classes to receive education,” CHP Kayseri lawmaker Çetin Arık said in the press conference on Sept. 19.

“The majority of families [with children with autism] are obliged to confine their children to their homes,” Arık told journalists in the press briefing. 

Noting that there were no teachers in schools where classes for children with autism exist, Arık said all parents of children with autism in Turkey were suffering from the same fate.

“Children with autism need to receive education for at least 40 hours a week. However, the education given lasts for two hours,” he added. 

During his press statement, the CHP MP made a call on behalf of families with children with autism.

“Don’t take the right to education from these children away. Receiving an education is a constitutional right. Provide these children with education. My aim as a father is to make my daughter a university graduate,” he said.