Rights of children with disabilities and positive obligations of states

Children with disabilities constitute a group with multiple disadvantages due to the intense difficulty they experience in accessing rights. In the world, documents regulating the rights of both children and persons with disabilities within a human rights-based framework have started to be created and accepted quite recently. In the first part of the thesis, it is discussed how the ideas about children with disabilities, which started to form in Ancient Greece, turned into reality in Nazi Germany and how the current process has been reached. In addition, the definitions of disability and childhood in international documents are examined. Basic concepts, principles, rights and obligations regarding child disability constitute the second part of the thesis. Under this heading, the concepts of accessibility, reasonable accommodation and universal design, which have an important place in ensuring the rights of children with disabilities and constitute the basis of every right related to the subject of the thesis, are also discussed. There is no doubt that children with disabilities have many other rights such as education, health and non-discrimination as well as many other rights that should be ensured for them to have a quality development in a free environment. In today's world, the rights of freedom of thought and expression, the right to play, the right to political participation, and the right to independent living, which are still not emphasized enough in both legislation and practice, have been examined under this topic in the light of national and international regulations, and the problems that disabled children may face in accessing these rights have been addressed based on international regulations. In the third part of the thesis, the supervisory mechanisms established to monitor the implementation of the obligations imposed on states by the regulations in the field of human rights are discussed. The Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Committee on the Rights of the Child, which are supervisory bodies that specifically include children with disabilities in their conventions, are discussed in more detail.