First Lady Erdoğan: Is it a humanitarian duty to be the voice of children in war zones?

First Lady Erdoğan made a speech at the "Investing in Children's Welfare: The Path to Sustainable and Equitable Development of Future Generations World Summit" held in Samarkand, the capital of Uzbekistan.

Greeting the participants at the summit, First Lady Erdoğan said that she was very happy to be in Uzbekistan, the pearl of Transoxiana, on the occasion of this meaningful summit.

Stating that they are together today to talk about the welfare of children, First Lady Erdoğan said, "I find it particularly meaningful to address this vital issue in Samarkand, one of the most magnificent civilization basins of our ancient tradition. I believe that the unique accumulation of knowledge and wisdom from Biruni to Ibn Sina, from Imam Bukhari to Khwarezmi, will shed light on our goal of establishing a just world full of well-being for our children. In our view, the child is the heart of humanity. "Issues related to them should always be kept at the center of the global agenda." he said.

First Lady Erdoğan stated that there is a direct relationship between the sustainable development and future of a society and the investment in child welfare and said, "When we say child welfare, our criteria are clear. We take as a basis the meeting of basic needs such as nutrition, shelter, security, access to education and health services. However, the world is changing every day. Therefore, traditional indicators measuring child welfare, numbers expressed in percentages, can turn into a wholesale approach that obscures the big picture. Because the measurements we make are actually a way of seeing. They are selective. Numbers show what they focus on." "While we tell what we have received, the same numbers also tell what we ignore." he said.

Stating that it is essential for welfare statistics that children go to school and not be exposed to physical violence, First Lady Erdoğan said, "But going to school does not always mean receiving a qualified education, not being exposed to violence, and being loved and valued. Therefore, evaluating today's world with yesterday's criteria gives incomplete results. Because we live in an age of multiple crises and our children face multidimensional challenges. We must also include the climate crisis, war conditions and the forced migrations caused by these into the equation." he said.

In addition, pointing out that rapid changes in the world add new concepts to the literature every day, First Lady Erdoğan stated that issues such as climate anxiety, artificial intelligence, digital violence, attention exploitation have become the new generation problem areas of humanity and that the definition of "child welfare" should be reconsidered according to the needs of the age.

First Lady Erdoğan emphasized that in Türkiye, they developed social policies with this understanding, by reading the spirit of the time, and that they saw the child's physical needs and mental, spiritual and moral needs as a whole, and shared the following examples:

"Above all, we embrace the principle that protecting the family institution is the basic condition for protecting the child. In this respect, the declaration of 2025 as the Year of the Family by our President was the first step of a long-term vision. We have determined the period 2026-2035 as the 'Decade of Family and Population'. With our Turkey Century Education Model, we raise our children as well-equipped individuals who can look at the world from the window of their own geography and keep up with the times. We have implemented the Digital "We are one of the first countries in the world to take action to protect our children against the risks of digital life with the Convention on the Rights of the Child. In this context, we have limited the access of children under the age of 15 to social media and introduced obligations such as age verification and parental control on platforms."

Source: TRT Haber Açık RSS (Gündem) (Open Press / Translated Full Text)