Children to whom Atatürk gifted a holiday are being married off and falling victim to workplace accidents

Three days ago was April 23rd...

National Sovereignty and Children's Day.

But unfortunately, one cannot feel filled with joy as in the poem we have been accustomed to reciting since our childhood... 

105 years have passed since the establishment of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. 

The Great Leader Mustafa Kemal Atatürk designated this special day as Children's Day and gifted it to the children. We are the only nation in the world that has a children's holiday.

However, as Sezen Aksu says in her song, "the festivities of our hearts' holidays have faded."

While our Ancestor advised us to raise future generations as modern, civilized, and useful individuals to society, let us all look together at what we have done to children in recent years. 

While children were gifted a holiday in Atatürk's old Turkey, in the new Turkey, children are dying, being raped, murdered, forced to work, married off, giving birth, and being exploited. 

While claiming we would raise 'domestic and national' generations, we have turned into a freakish society. A 13-year-old child walking in a marketplace is stabbed to death by another child. The family trying to seek justice is threatened, journalists are threatened...

This is also being done by other children, and by the gangs that drag these children into crime. You may have seen the other day in that same marketplace, 12-13-year-old children walking with the same haircuts as Ahmet Minguzzi's  killers, walking like them, acting like thugs and throwing their weight around. Yet, in the past, we used to see those children in folk costumes. They were celebrating the holiday with their peers who came from various countries around the world. 

In the 'New Turkey,' instead of a holiday, weddings are being held for children. Little girls are being married off to men the age of their fathers or grandfathers. They are being handed over to sheikhs in religious sects... They say, 'The minor also gave consent.'

Didn't a 14-year-old girl just give birth in a hospital and throw her baby in the trash in this country only two days ago? 

The age of drug use has dropped to primary school levels. The number of child laborers has risen to a level unprecedented in our history. The education system, which you change almost twice a year, is raising generations that are ignorant, uncultured, devoid of science, and empty.

If you appoint religious studies teachers instead of math and science teachers, if you fill schools with imams, and if you try to turn  everything into a religious matter, then neither a children's holiday nor any real holidays will remain in that country. 

You are removing teachers who prepare children for future generations from the most prestigious schools through reassignments that amount to purges, simply because you do not like their lifestyles or political views. Yet, on the other hand, a lunatic can pose inside a classroom with a fully automatic rifle—supposedly as a school principal. You say you have launched an investigation; that is wonderful! By all means, launch it... 

While immediate action is taken against students who are detained the same day for a tweet they posted, rounded up from their homes in the middle of the night for participating in a protest, or handcuffed behind their backs and taken into custody on the streets within minutes, with their investigations continuing while they remain in prison, an investigation is merely being opened into a vice principal who poses with a fully automatic weapon. When will this investigation conclude?

For instance, is this educator with a fully automatic rifle less dangerous to society than the children who participate in protests? 

We said the holidays have become a poison; let us look at the statistics to see why holidays have become a poison for children.

The number of child laborers aged 15-17, which was 678,000 in 2017, has reached 967,000 in 2024, an increase of 42.63 percent. According to information provided by Taner Akpınar, an executive at the Foundation for the Study and Education of Working Children (FİŞEK), 519 children have lost their lives in workplace accidents since 2017. 

According to official figures, the number of child laborers has reached 1 million. 

The Ministry of Justice provided the figure:  In 2010, 83,000 children were dragged into crime; in 2016, this was 148,000; and in 2024, it reached 284,000. In other words, the increase over 14 years is 242 percent.

Do not dare ask, "Is no one doing anything for children?" Of course they are.

Legislative proposals including items such as the free distribution of textbooks to all students during compulsory education, providing students with one free hot meal a day, and giving a free pair of shoes and a coat to students who request them are in Parliament... But their turn never seems to come. Because there are much more important topics, such as salary raises for members of parliament. 

None of them have been rejected; they are simply waiting for their turn. For example, according to a report by Sarp Sağkal from Cumhuriyet, a legislative proposal submitted to the Speaker of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (TBMM) by CHP member Mahmut Tanal on January 10, 2020, suggested the free distribution of textbooks to all students during compulsory education, providing students with one free hot meal a day, and giving a free pair of shoes and a coat to students who request them. This proposal, which was referred to the Committee on National Education, Culture, Youth and Sports on June 19, 2023, has been sitting on the shelves ever since.

A legislative proposal submitted by CHP member Ömer Fethi Gürer for the stationery expenses of students of compulsory education age to be covered by the Ministry of National Education has been sitting in Parliament for two years.

On the other hand, legislative proposals submitted to the Parliament's Justice Committee to increase penalties for those who commit sexual abuse against children, to ensure that provisions such as conditional release and probation are not applied to these crimes, and to increase sanctions applied when children are not sent to school are also waiting on the shelves to be discussed.

Do not worry, their turn will come! But until that turn comes, there is nothing that won't happen to today's children. 

A very simple question: Is providing these students with one meal a day more expensive than the luxury Audi vehicles used by the staff of the Presidency of Religious Affairs? 

Or is meeting the stationery needs of these children and distributing their books for free more expensive than the empty events organized in various countries, unnecessary organizations at foreign missions, the luxury vehicles you ride in, or private jets? 

You keep saying you want to raise a 'domestic and national' generation... With a curriculum you change almost twice a year and an educational approach overshadowed by religious sects, you won't get anywhere. If you withhold books, stationery, and school lunches from these children, you won't be able to raise children, let alone 'domestic and national' ones. Then, the children you think you have raised either fall into the hands of the mafia or sects, or answer a reporter asking for the largest four-digit odd number by saying, 'A big brother'.  

Never forget this: if you are truly going to pursue a domestic and national policy and raise domestic and national generations, this cannot be achieved solely through an education system under the shadow of religious communities and sects, or through the impositions of factions that align with your own lifestyles.

The only true path is to follow the path of science and the path of the Great Leader Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.

He was a visionary leader who gifted a holiday to children, entrusted the country to the youth, directed Turkish youth toward the professions of the future by stating that the future lies in the skies, and recognized that the farmer is the master of the nation. He was an economist who had the foresight to grow everything on his own soil with his own seeds, and to establish his own factories and banks. He had determined a domestic and national policy that would not sell its banks, resources, or official institutions to foreigners. 

No matter how we look at it, we see that only the path he illuminated is the right one. When we deviate from that path, we lose our way. We are left at the mercy of sects. Those sects try to take over the country. Our economy collapses, and we become a country that cannot sustain itself. The scales of justice falter, and we move away from meritocracy. And we sail rapidly from the goal of contemporary civilization toward darkness. Neither our currency nor our word retains any credibility...

Those who do not see this path will surely be erased from the stage of history, but as he said in his own words, the Republic of Turkey will continue to exist forever.

Children who cannot celebrate their holidays today will surely continue to carry this country forward despite all the negativity... Because no matter what you do,  Atatürk's vision continues to sprout in these lands in one way or another. Even if you do not mention his name in Friday sermons, even if you dismiss officers who say 'We are the soldiers of Mustafa Kemal' from the army, even if you do not visit Anıtkabir on national holidays, and even if you erase the name of Atatürk from stadiums, that spirit sprouts from somewhere and blossoms. Even if you do not celebrate the holidays that were Atatürk's gift, you cannot uproot his love or his vision from these lands.