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THE OMBUDSMAN INSTITUTION OF THE REPUBLIC OF TÜRKİYE 2018 ANNUAL REPORT

to which Türkiye is a party, too. The Ombudsman Institution of Türkiye acts with a mission to
seek, protect and implement the rights of all the children living in Türkiye.

The Ombudsman Institution is the only institution to which children can directly apply,
which is a first of its kind. Therefore, any application filed to our Institution about children’s
rights is considered as an important step to help our children to have their own ideas and freely
express them, to raise their awareness in terms of their rights and freedoms, to be an individual
raised with a democratic culture as well as ensuring their active engagement in democracy.
By receiving applications from the children, our Institution also assumes the responsibility
to create a child-amicable society in cooperation with the Administration, international
organizations and the civil society organizations.

Our Institution’s works on promoting equal opportunities for women and men, protecting and
strengthening women’s rights as well as fighting against violence towards women in Türkiye
continued in 2018, too. In 2018, we received applications regarding equal opportunities
for women and men, social benefits, working conditions of women in work life, and service
provision for women victims of violence.

Our works in the field of women’s human rights are not limited to complaint application
mechanism. We work in coordination and cooperation with the relevant public authorities and
civil society organizations working in this field, and we closely monitor current developments
and problems within our mandate, we provide necessary contributions to resolving the
problems that women in Türkiye face with.
In this regard, considering the prevalence of cases of domestic violence against women and
children in 2018, our Institution organized a workshop so as to identify shortcomings in
the functioning of existing mechanisms on preventing domestic violence against women and
children and to formulate solutions. Upon receiving applications relating to the problems
stemming from breakdown of unity of family after divorce, our Institution also held meetings
and workshops to take the opinions of all relevant stakeholders and discussed the solutions
with an inclusive method.

I would like to sincerely thank all my colleagues and staff who worked really hard and showed
maximum effort to deal with the applications regarding my areas of responsibility, and also all
the other Ombudsmen as well as the Chief Ombudsman Mr. Şeref Malkoç who supported us
when needed in carrying out our works.

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