SİMGE ÇİÇEK

2017108132

CANSU ŞEKERCİ- “Children in jail”

She is a lawyer since 2016 and she is currently advocating for children who are between 12-

18 years old and 0-6 years old with their mothers in jail.

What is the CISST community and what do them about this topic?

Central workplace is jail. They make surveillances and advocacy. Also, they make literature

reviews about jails, and they have a library that includes. Novels, books, research papers etc.

It works several thematic domains that are excluding to majority such as women, disabled

people, students, children, LGBTİ+, gypsies, terrorists, and health. People who life

imprisonment suffers from cancer, have difficult situation in jails. Students who need to work

exams still have difficulty in jails. People who blind or vision impairments need special

requirements. As a result, CISST purpose’s research rights violations especially in more

disadvantaged groups.

How CISST get information from jails? They mostly do not meet directly so; there are

several ways to get information. There are letters, hotline, lawyer visits, communicating with

families, and applications for information. These letters can be limited by managers. They

also read letters and they can interfere with the content of letters. Children’s letters also

limited and undermine by managers.

In jails, which do necessities of prisoners meet by government?

CISST has an advocacy for human violations in jails. It reports any prisoner rights violations.

For example, if women who are pregnant do not access doctoral visits, the CISST report this

violation to public institutions such as human rights units, ministry of justice, and CİMER
etc. In Covid-19, prisoners do not get enough hygiene kits. This is a human right violation so;

CISST advocacy for those kinds of violations.

Raising awareness is one of the important topics that CISST consider in right based

advocacy. There are several tools for increasing awareness of prisoners' human rights. They

work with STÖ that related to these thematic domains, social media, seminars, educations,

and publications.

Research: reports based on surveillance works. This aim is to be visible so; there are several

publications for increasing awareness and inform public. There are libraries that include

several publications that people get easily access.

What does Cansu Şekerci as a part of civil society in this field? Working in civil society

allows her to study multi-disciplinary area. She made master on judicial units that support the

understanding of restorative justice and detecting torture and misbehaving. Interacting with

other fields helps to connect different people. Besides, civil societies require methodological

working ability to express their activities. We cannot publish reports and publications

inappropriate ways. At the same time, people who work as a part of civil society takes a

critical perspective against public institutions political control.

Is taking children in jails to cinema for a while a right based? In this situation, we should ask

several questions to understand right-based activities. Is this support sustainable for children?

Or is just a help or good intent? Did people who make this activity for children continue?

Does a support mechanism establish? Does every child involve in this activity?

In working with children in jails, we should need to consider the rights of children according

to United Nations. People who work with children in jails must behave non-discriminatory

way and they must think the best interest of child. Also, child participation must be
encouraged, and children should involve the process of rights violations. Every child must be

protected from torture and deprivation of freedom.

When we look at the spread of children jails in Turkey, control mechanisms and activities

that created by civil organizations do not equally distributed.

Children in jails encounter many difficulties and human rights violations that invisibility,

torture and misbehaving, having difficulty for accessing most basic needs such as

communicating with family members, and lawyers, education, social life and activities.

Children who are 0-6 years are the most vulnerable group in jails conditions. They encounter

so many developmentally inappropriate situations in prison. Those age group and their

families do not find developmentally appropriate places for growing up. There are prison

kindergartens and mother-child units, but those places are not sufficient for mother and their

children. Ceren Şeker showed a few pictures from those kindergartens in prisons and there

are not enough for children’s whole development unfortunately. Also, people who work in

prison kindergartens could not have enough competence about child development. Besides,

there are no control mechanisms in those prison kindergartens.

Overall, Ceren Şeker presentation is helpful for understanding jails’ conditions and human

right violations. I have never been thinking about children in jails so deeply before so; this

presentation leads to think about these issues. I think, prisoner’s rights are a hard topic for

discussion because some people can think that people who committed a crime could not have

a right. However, those people imprisoned already, and they are executed so; violations of

rights should not be a case for those people. Especially, children are the most important life

periods, and their precious years spend prisons. There should not be any prisons for children

of course. The government must consider alternative precautions for preventing crimes. I

have been thinking about alternative ways and why should not be any children prison.