Police cordon off the area outside of the Caglayan courthouse in Istanbul, Türkiye, March 22, 2025.
(Berlin) – A new Turkish law that imposes heavy prison sentences on children found guilty of committing crimes is likely to cause harm and moves Turkish policy further away from international norms, Human Rights Watch said today. The law, which went into effect on August 18, 2026, allows courts to impose prison sentences up to 27 years for children age 12 and up, and life in prison for those 15 and older.
Imposing criminal penalties on children younger than 14 and sentencing children as though they were adults violates international child rights standards. The law also directs officials to hold children in closed prisons and not in educational facilities, as is the appropriate practice for child offenders. Türkiye should instead reform its child justice system to comply with the best international standards.
“Any serious crime committed by a child deserves a serious response, but locking up children for decades is neither just nor effective, and can be harmful and potentially counterproductive,” said Bill Van Esveld, associate children’s rights director at Human Rights Watch. “Child justice standards are grounded in science that establishes that children have the ability to grow and reform, so they should not be punished like adults.”
The Turkish government promoted harsher penalties for children after the fatal stabbing of a 14-year-old boy, Mattia Ahmet Minguizzi, in January 2025. Two boys, ages 15 and 16, were each sentenced to 24 years for the killing, at that time the maximum sentence. But politicians contended that increased prison terms were needed to deter children from crime.
The new law amends the previous maximum sentences for children ages 15 to 17, which under the penal code were 24 years for the most serious offences such as “premeditated
