Children placed in the care of social services and assigned to foster parents after being taken away from their parents, sometimes forcibly, have long been a source of concern for Turkish families living in Europe, particularly in Germany. The issue had even sparked protests by the Turkish community claiming unjust treatment. Turkish Family and Social Services Minister Derya Yanık said they closely monitor the situation and ensured the return of 200 children in Germany to their biological parents.
Turkey had stepped up its efforts in family and social services work for the growing Turkish diaspora around the world, and Yanık had recently announced that they would open the new diplomatic offices of the "family attache" to help Turkish families abroad. In a written statement on Monday, the minister said that since 2015 they were involved in the cases of 398 children "under protection" abroad, referring to children referred to social services. She said 200 children only in Germany were returned to their families after they were placed in the care of German social services.
The issue is sensitive for the Turkish diaspora in Germany where some families claimed that their children were given away to foster parents and raised as Christian or solely with German culture and language. Yanık said they opened two offices in recent years in Duesseldorf and Cologne and were monitoring the problems the families faced. "One of the priorities of our staff there is children in foster care and ensuring that they were given to foster parents with Turkish roots," she said.
The minister said they were informing the families on their rights and helping in their access to legal services. She added that their teams were also in contact with the German children's welfare agency "Jugendamt" "to find out if there are any misunderstandings" regarding the cases where children are taken away from their families. She said they provided services to the families of 161 children who were referred to Jugendamt.
The minister complained that the number of Turkish foster parents abroad were limited, and they were working to raise awareness about the issue through educational programs by their representatives abroad. She noted that so far, they managed to convince 599 families of Turkish descent to be potential foster parents.