By Nazlan Ertan
The tragic story of five young children who perished in a house fire on Nov. 11 underlines the brutal toll of systemic poverty and neglect on society's most vulnerable. Left alone while their mother was out collecting scrap metal to survive, these children died after the electric heater, the only means to heat their makeshift home, went up in flames. Their short lives were tragically cut short not just by fire but by layers of systemic poverty and inadequate social support.
The news of their death in Izmir came at a time when many - but not all - world leaders were at Baku for the COP29, making promises of inclusivity, pledging to 'leave no one behind' in addressing climate change, and vowing to secure sustainable development and environmental/social justice. The principle of leaving no one behind, fundamental to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, resonates with promises of justice, equality, and access to basic needs for all. Yet, the Izmir fire reveals that these are slogans on a page while the situation on the ground shows many without adequate housing, safety nets, and opportunities to escape poverty.
“What we see in this house in Selçuk, Izmir is what I have been seeing for the last twenty years all around Turkey,” says Hacer Foggo, the founder of the Deep Poverty Network (DPN) and a sharp critic of the government policies on social aid. “The mother and her five children are invisible to those who think in terms of a food package and a health card before elections.”
In Izmir, officials state that the family of these five children received aid from the municipality and the Ministry of Family and Social Services. But such support was evidently insufficient. One neighbor who talked to the press said that the youngest received 1,100 TL of financial support. “Not enough for diapers,” she said. “We neighbors tried to keep an eye on the children.”
This family lived without adequate utilities, relying on temporary fixes like charity and minimal public assistance. Melisa Akcan, the mother who was estranged from her family and husband in jail, was forced into a cycle of labor without social security, leaving her children in a perilous situation while she tried to put food on the table. On that day, she had left the children to pick up the money for the scraps she sold. “I cannot stop thinking of my children, I am on tranquilizers,” she told the local media. She has been taken into custody for neglect, but released pending trial. Her husband, imprisoned for petty theft, was briefly released to attend the funeral of the children.
AKP Group Deputy Chair Özlem Zengin remarked that economic hardship alone does not account for such tragedies, suggesting “other” social factors. Eager to shift the blame, the Family and Social Affairs Ministry said that the house where the Akcan family lived had been visited 18 times and officials had suggested taking the children under state care. Melisa Akcan had refused to be parted from her children.
The Turkish parliament took up the case on Nov. 12, but the debate, as you would expect, did not focus on multi-level governance, where both central authority and local bodies share the burden to help marginalized groups similar to the Akcan family. Neither did they discuss concrete proposals to strengthen the social nets or allocate more money for disadvantaged families. Rather, they engaged in mutual mud-slinging.
Faggo maintained that social services have other options to help the mother and shot one question after another on a lengthy post on X: Had there been any efforts to provide a job and steady income to the mother under the declared social policies? Had the visiting social workers, seeing that the house was unfit to live in, proposed rent subsidies so that the family could live in a decent home? Were the children offered the option of daycare centers? True the mother had refused to be parted from her children, but seeing the grave risks for the children in the house, had there been any psychological support and consultation offered to the mother - estranged from her family and husband in jail - so she would reconsider her options?
Foggo said that seven million children live on the edge of absolute poverty and exclusion. “How many more children should perish so that you’d reconsider social policies?” she asked Zengin.
Turkey has been grappling with high poverty rates, a situation exacerbated by inflation and currency devaluation. In 2021, about 21.3% of Turkey's population was at risk of poverty or social exclusion. The poverty threshold, set at 60% of median income, has impacted 26.5% of the country’s youth, emphasizing the need for stronger social protections.
In Izmir, poverty affects a significant portion of the population, especially in areas like Selçuk, where economic challenges are acute. Regional disparities mean that poverty rates in such areas can be notably higher than in major urban centers, partly due to limited access to economic opportunities and social service.
