What will happen to the children orphaned by Türkiye’s earthquakes?

More than seven million children have been affected by the massive twin earthquakes and powerful aftershocks in Türkiye and Syria, the UN children's agency UNICEF has said, voicing fear that "many thousands" more had died.

A total of 4.6 million children live in the 11 Turkish provinces hit by the quakes, while there are 2.5 million children living in the affected areas in Syria, according to the agency.

At least 1,362 children had been separated from their families and left unaccompanied by the quake, Minister of Family and Social Services, Derya Yanik said in a statement on February 13.

The post-disaster process for unaccompanied children is expected to be much more sensitive than the other children affected, both in legal and psychosocial terms.

Over 200,000 foster family applications have been received by the Ministry of Family and Social Services after the earthquake, according to officials.

Even though the “downpour of compassion” for these children is impressive, Yanik says, there are certain processes that need to be followed legally.

Legal process

Children left unaccompanied by the earthquake are now considered as “children whose safety is in danger” within the scope of the Child Protection Law, Betul Topal, an Istanbul-based lawyer, tells TRT World.

It is the duty of judicial and administrative authorities, law-enforcement officers, health and education institutions, and non-governmental organisations to notify the children in need of protection to the Ministry of Family and Social Services, Topal says.

These notifications need to be followed by a judge's decision to keep the child under the agency’s protection, and the decision should be made within three days.

However, in a state of emergency like an earthquake, this process can take longer.

Identification

When a child is found unaccompanied in an earthquake zone or is notified to the ministry, identification is the first step. This has been done by the “DerinGORU” programme developed by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Türkiye (TUBITAK) since the first day of the disaster.

The programme monitors information of people taken care at hospitals and tries to match them with children's informations. It also uses the children's images to make matches while monitoring social media for images, besides official records.

So far, 78 children have been reunited with their families thanks to the DerinGORU programme, according to officials.

As Minister Yanik said in a statement on Monday,  369 of the 1,362 unaccompanied children have been reunited with their families after they were identified and their families were investigated.

201 children are now under the ministry’s care after it was determined that their families were lost after the quake, while 792 of them have been kept at hospitals.

There are still 267 children who have not yet been identified, says the ministry, adding that investigations are ongoing.

Both children who have already been under the government’s protection before the earthquake and children who are left unaccompanied by the disaster have been transferred to other provinces across Türkiye.

35 unaccompanied children have been transferred to Istanbul, said Merve Bas, general manager of the child services unit at Istanbul’s provincial directorate of family and social services.

Some of these children have already been taken under the family ministry’s protection. Some others are still kept under temporal care while the search for their families goes on, she tells TRT World.

Collaboration needed on ground

Many experts say that child victims of the earthquake need to get psychosocial support urgently, too.

“It is crucial to return to routines in dealing with disaster effects, and this process becomes harder for children who lost their parents in the disaster,” social worker Sumeyye Tekeli tells TRT World.

So far 2,072 personnel have been deployed by the state in quake-hit areas to provide earthquake victims psychosocial support.

Cooperation between official institutions and non-governmental organisations will make the process easier and wide-ranging, as it is expected to last longer.

“We, as Children of Earth Association, have created a form both for families who lost their children and children who lost their families in the earthquake. We share the responses we received with the relevant units of the family ministry and there have been children whom we brought back to their families thanks to this form,” Tekeli adds.

While unaccompanied children are taken care of by the ministry, local organisations and NGOs are working hard on the ground to support psychosocial work for all children.

Professional teams with psychologists specialised in trauma from several NGOs provide group therapy and individual therapy sessions to parents, as well as children.

None of them are unaccompanied, and around 1,000 children receive psychosocial support at a campus established with cooperation of several NGOs, campus coordinator Sevket Kalkan tells TRT World.

Various games are used as a tool by professionals to help children overcome anxiety, and they can express their feelings through arts and sports, he says.

To notify unaccompanied children or families who are looking for their children, you can get in contact with the Turkish Ministry of Family and Social Services via the “ALO183” line.