Sevinç, who is less than 2 years old, became visually impaired after being beaten by her mother.The blame cannot only be laid on the parents because according to reports, state officials did nothing until the child was blinded, despite several complaints from neighbors and a health center in the village where the family lives.
It seems that Sevinç is not an extraordinary example, because according to the news, there are some parents in this country who think that it is good that their children are beaten up at school.
In Kayseri a school headmaster made students line up in the garden and slapped their hands with a ruler. Someone recorded this collective beating and TV stations broadcasted it. The Ministry of Education opened an investigation, and unbelievably, some parents collected signatures in order to defend the headmaster. I hope there is a Neverland for the children of those parents who defended the headmaster.
It was really heartbreaking to listen to the police explanation about missing children in a press conference this week, mainly for two reasons.
The police stated that most of the missing children are girls who are 13-18 years old. According to security forces they disappeared because of “love affairs.”
Reading between the lines this statement indicates that girls run away because of love affairs and this is normal. Well, in the end, we are a country in which the legal marriageable age has been increased to 17 for girls after a long struggle. Plus, if girls are disappearing, if they are running away from home, the main reason for it is not “love affairs” but early age forced marriages, as stated in a report by the Prime Ministry Human Rights Presidency.
And, of course, finding out the whereabouts of those children starts by changing this mentality. The state should be woman and child-friendly.
The second point which made me angry was the claim by the police which suggests that if we don’t take into account the number of children who run away from orphanages, the number of missing children is normal. What does that mean? Does it mean that it is normal for children under state custody to disappear? Does it mean that we should get upset only if the sons and daughters of good families disappear?
There was a recommendation from the police to families: watch your children’s Internet usage. Well, of course, this is a valuable tip, but in a country like this, it turns into the prohibition of the Internet for children.
Besides that, what we understand is that there are no special police units to find missing children -- forget about the special units, the state does not even have adequate statistics on missing children.
Not only state officials but also the dominant culture is about to cause a flood due to its crocodile tears. There is much to do about missing children, there are many measures that can be taken, there is a lot to think about, but there are only crocodile tears around after the disappearance of the children.
But the state and some segments of society are doing their best when it comes to stone-throwing children. Responsible state officials, for example, the police, are not losing a minute in pointing out a masked child who has participated in a demonstration and shouted slogans. The very judges who think it is normal to supply a marriage license to a 16-year-old girl -- which actually only means a license for sexual abuse -- are very quick to give a seven-year prison sentence to the stone-throwing children.
Some segments of society that pretend they are going crazy over the missing children if they are from “good families” approve of the disappearance of the future for children in prison.
The state apparatus in general always favors itself when the subject is security; it devotes its efforts and resources against its “enemies” but not to the enemies of its citizens. Because of the same reason that we face all the time -- the state is not for the citizens, but the citizens are for the state.
We should give up being Captain Hooks if we want to deserve the happy laughter of our children.
