Pelşin Çetinkaya

 

AMED- Children will be able to express their thoughts freely with the Children's Assembly, which was established with the aim of supporting children's active participation in urban life and making them the subjects of social life.

 

Under the leadership of the Diyarbakır City Council and with the contributions of the Amed Children's Rights Network, the Children's Assembly was established in Amed with the aim of eliminating various deficiencies in children's access to social, cultural and public spaces, supporting children to live in a more just, participatory, multilingual, rights-based and child-friendly city and to have a say in urban life. The declaration of the Assembly, which was established with the aim of making Amed a child-friendly city, was held on 5 May 2025 at Çand Amed Congress and Culture Centre. In the declaration, comprehensive information on the functioning, work plan and participation methods of the Children's Assembly was shared with the public. While the established assembly consists only of children, children will be able to freely make decisions on a subject.

 

Amed Child Rights Network Co-spokesperson lawyer Berfin Elçi spoke about the Children's Assembly.

 

‘Children's right to participation will be functionalised’

 

Berfin Elçi drew attention to the fact that children, who are the subjects of life, were ignored in the decisions taken in the city and said, "Until now, the participation of children in cities has been ignored. After ten years of trustee destruction, the city council was rendered dysfunctional and there was no children's assembly. Children had no right to speak. Children's own wishes and right to participate in decisions about themselves were ignored. With this council, children's right to participate in decisions about themselves will become functional again. After a long preparation phase, the children's assembly was made open for opening. The reason why the Children's Assembly has not been opened until now was that it was in a long preparation phase. After a long preparation phase, the children's assembly was made open for opening. We only made efforts for the establishment of this assembly and the process was carried out together with the Amed Child Rights Network."

 

Children will discuss and decide on decisions among themselves

 

Stating that the Children's Assembly will only consist of children, Berfin Elçi said, "Only children will take part in the assembly and it will proceed with the participation of children. It will function as a full parliament. There, children will make the decisions themselves. There will be no contribution from any adults. Children in the assembly will come together at certain intervals. Here, they will discuss the decisions made in the city and take decisions themselves. And they will convey them directly to the city council and the people in the city council will comply with the decisions in the assembly."