Turkish cyber police to examine YouTubers airing children

Mesut Hasan Belli – ISTANBUL

Turkish cybercrimes police units have taken a step to examine persons or families who earn money by broadcasting the daily lives of their babies or children on YouTube, following a lawyer’s complaint petition to the Presidential Communications Center (CİMER).

“The use of children as merchandise is totally against the convention on the rights of the children and child rights,” said Nur Ülküer, the head of the Association of Pediatric Development (CGEDER), while supporting the complaint.

The debate began after Şahin Antakyalıoğlu, a lawyer working on child rights, applied to CİMER complaining that “some parents generate an income on their YouTube channels by airing childcare.”

Naming the situation a “child trade,” Antakyalıoğlu said, “Those children have become victims of abusive parents.”

The lawyer asked authorities to “close these YouTube channels” and “hold inquiries against these parents.”

CİMER directed the petition to the General Directorate of Security and asked the police unit working on juveniles to look after the complaint.

The juvenile unit, then, utilized the cybercrimes unit to “investigate those people sharing posts on the issue.”

According to local officials, the cybercrimes police unit started putting the aforementioned YouTube channels within the scope of the investigation.

“With every click on those YouTube videos, families earn money. The debate may lead up to, even, child labor,” Ülküer noted.

Nebahat Boğut, a child development expert, agreed with Ülküer, highlighting that all those broadcasts are “felonies.”

“Showing the faces and bodies of children and making a living from this is a crime,” she said. “One cannot make money from children they gave birth to.”

When asked if the situation can harm children psychologically, Ülküer hinted that some children have been shown as personalities different from who they are.

“The children used in those videos are getting detracted from their normal lives. These videos also have bad impacts on those watching them.”

Besides the police investigation, Boğut gave a warning to YouTubers’ parents, too.

“One day, when they grow up, your own children may sue you and demand high compensations.”