Child abuse commission to hear academics, lawyers first
ANKARA – Anadolu Agency
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Unlike the conventional procedure of initially gathering information from public institutions, the Turkish parliament’s commission on child abuse prevention will first listen to experts on the issue ranging from doctors and sociologists to law experts and NGO representatives before conducting further work, according to Yılmaz Tunç, the commission’s head and a ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) Bartın deputy.“Firstly, we will listen to the academics. We are going to get information from people who know the technical and theoretical dimensions [of the issue]. Among these, we will listen to mostly forensic science experts, sociologists, criminal lawyers who are especially working on the child abuse sub-category and professors who are experts in child law,” said Tunç, adding they would lay out the details of the issue in the first couple of weeks and then listen to NGO representatives.
Tunç said the commission would afterwards invite representatives from public institutions like the Family and Social Policies Ministry and related departments in the Justice Ministry and Interior Ministry and go over research, reports and statistics concerning the issue of child abuse.
“We care too much about the child [abuse] issue. The academia will show us who to listen to and who not to listen to... The principle we will oversee during our work will be children’s rights and their interests. The commission’s duty is [to fight against] abuse, with sexual abuse being the priority. The abuse could be sexual or emotional, could be a lack of care for children or mobbing. All abuse areas are within our scope,” said Tunç.
