GENERAL

A sad balance sheet: According to the data compiled by the Health and Safety Labour Watch * from the events it has access to, at least 42 child workers lost their lives in the first seven months of 2024. It is known that at least nine of the dead children were working within the scope of the MESEM program. ** Amendments to the Vocational Education Law in 2016 and 2021 paved the way for children to be used as cheap labor with a one-day "training" a week that remains on paper. Workerized children die while working and live a life without workers' rights, subjected to intense violence and physically and mentally injured. We discussed the issue with Ezgi Koman, who has been working in the field of child rights for years and is part of a program focusing on MESEMs at the FISA (Fikir ve Sanat Atölyesi) Child Rights Center.

In a letter of inquiry to Turkey’s Ambassador, Sadık Arslan, three groups tied to the UN Human Rights Council posed critical questions concerning what Armenians experienced in 1915 and the years that followed. Edvin Minassian, who lives in the United States, wrote about the importance of the letter and how the Armenian community has responded to it.

Artificial intelligence (AI)-powered robots are being introduced for automation in healthcare, and on the street as facial recognition software. However, AI robots can only be as smart and democratic as the data we feed into their algorithms and the persons who use them. AI can also amplify the historical and social injustices embedded in data. For AI and robot ethics, let’s not forget it is us – humans with all our prejudices – and not aliens from space, who are designing and deploying AI robots in healthcare and society.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan spoke at the symposium on ‘the Development and Vision of our Archives, and their Contribution to Research on History’ held on April 24 at Beştepe Millet Congress and Cultural Centre.

James Robins, an award-winning journalist and historian, researching the connections between Australia, New Zealand and 1915, wrote a piece for Agos readers on New Zealand's current political climate.

When I asked Jasem Mahmudyan whether he had been to Iraq to visit the Yazidi holly sites in Lalesh, he answered in negative. The tragic events in Sinjar had shaken the entire Yazidi community, and some families had found temporary refuge in Armenia, but they had eventually continued to European destinations. From the village of Alakyaz, Iraq seemed very far away indeed.

The Armenian government can learn from the lessons of Georgia and elsewhere. For three decades, neoliberal policies did not bring happiness. To imagine solving Armenia’s problems by attracting foreign investments will fail.

On the 12th anniversary of Hrant Dink's murder, thousands gathered where he was shot. This year's speech was delivered by Filiz Ali, the daughter of Sabahattin Ali who was "lost" in custody in 1948.

Ara, who for decades, watched the world through the veiwfinder and clicked for images thousands of times to imortalize humanity hus shut his eyes and covered the lens of his cameras for good. Ara Güler’s images will live on, he will live thorugh the people who’s lives he touched.

In Cambodia I often heard that the particularity of the Cambodian genocide is the fact that “they killed their own people”. They mean by it that Khmer Rouge killed their ethnic kin, other Khmer.