Topic: 2025 – Reducing Recruitment Capabilities of Terrorist Groups
Country: Turkey
Delegate Name: Emily Chen
Country: Delegation of Türkiye
Committee: Disarmament and International Security Committee
Reducing the Growth of Terrorism
Terrorism is an ever-changing threat that targets the groundwork of societies and shatters the lives of thousands. To expand their group and agenda, terrorist groups often prey upon vulnerable people, having taken on strategies that exploit women, children, and those who are socio-economically vulnerable. Oftentimes, this leads to these victims, specifically children, being “forced into labour, subjected to violence, sent into armed combat, or coerced into carrying out suicide bombings” (Terrorism). One of the ways to combat these groups is to stop them from recruiting in the first place, addressing the underlying problems that leave the people vulnerable. But as the world of technology advances and social media has expanded its reach beyond geographical constraints, it has become increasingly more difficult to constrain the expansion of these groups. The UN has taken action to address this issue, one of which is the Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy, which was unanimously adopted on September 8 of 2006. The Strategy relies on the cooperation of nations and is built upon these four pillars: addressing conditions conducive to terrorism’s spread, preventing and combating terrorism itself, building state capacity to counter terrorism and strengthening the UN’s role, and ensuring respect for human rights and the rule of law as the foundation for fighting terrorism (United). This plan is reviewed every two years to reflect the problems the world is currently facing against terrorism. The UNODC also addresses this evolving problem with its Terrorism Prevention Branch, which “promotes international legal instruments, aids domestic implementation, and facilitates global cooperation” (United). The UNODC tackles the fundamental problems by reducing the vulnerabilities that make people more susceptible to recruitment. Even though current plans address the dangers of terrorism quite well, additional plans are needed to keep up with the challenges of how terrorism is carried out today.
Terrorism prevention and punishment within Türkiye is a very important matter to the government of Türkiye. In 2024, Türkiye passed a law 2024 which imprisoned anyone who has committed terrorist acts on behalf of a terrorist group, whether or not they are a member. Any legal persons (companies, associations, etc.), public or private, who are involved with financial crimes, including terrorist financing, will face administrative fines (Turkish). In Türkiye, any form of terrorism should be punished, regardless of the circumstance, since it actively endangers the stability of the government and the safety of its people. Along with financial punishment for corporations, Türkiye has also frozen the assets of terrorists and entities related to terrorism. From October 2021 to April 2024, Türkiye froze 972 terrorists’ and entities’ assets, and has worked with other member states to freeze a number of individuals’ assets. As for children, Türkiye has been working with UNICEF to bring justice to children involved in any crime. This new initiative, created on November 18, 2025, was made to strengthen child-friendly justice and will run until August 2028. It stresses the importance of prevention, protection, and rehabilitation for all children (UNICEF). To prevent the spread of terrorism and counter the recruitment of the young, Türkiye has the Public Awareness and Prevention Activities, or the PPA, to prevent the recruitment of new members, to ensure the surrender of terrorists, and to raise public awareness of terrorist activities. Conferences, both in person and online, were held to prevent recruitment in places such as universities and high schools. In the first quarter of 2024, 356,659 people were reached within the scope of Public Awareness Activities that the PPA does. All actions done by the PPA are made in the hopes of discouraging the young from terrorism and “develop an opposing discourse against terrorist organisations” (Turkish).
What needs to be done to prevent the growth of terrorism is to spread awareness of the issue. The target demographics for these terrorist groups, when it comes to expansion, are children, women, and the vulnerable. The Delegation of Türkiye calls upon member states to stress the importance of educating the impressionable, to steer them away from the path of invoking terror in our nations. This can be achieved with the funding of UN educational funds, such as Education Cannot Wait, also known as the ECW, for countries most susceptible to terrorist attacks and those under UNESCO. These funds would be used to put together conferences, such as the ones held in Türkiye, to educate students from elementary schools to universities. What is being discussed at these conferences is up to the individual member states as not to overstep their sovereignty. The Delegation of Türkiye also believes that the top priority for member states that do not already have laws to bring children to justice is to work with organizations such as UNICEF to work towards that goal.
Bibliography
Terrorism Prevention Branch. “GLOBAL PROGRAMME ON PREVENTING AND COUNTERING TERRORISM.” PROGRAMME DOCUMENT, report, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), 2022, www.unodc.org/res/terrorism/aboutus/UNODC_TPB_New_Global_Programme_abridged_online.pdf.
Turkish National Police Counter Terrorism Department. Turkish Measures in Countering Terrorism. 2024, www.un.org/en/ga/sixth/79/int_terrorism/turkey_e.pdf.
“UNICEF, European Union and Ministry of Justice Launch New Project to Advance Child Friendly Justice in Türkiye.” UNICEF, 18 Nov. 2025, www.unicef.org/turkiye/en/press-releases/unicef-european-union-and-ministry-justice-launch-new-project-advance-child-friendly. Accessed 23 Nov. 2025.
United Nations. “Countering Terrorism | United Nations.” United Nations, www.un.org/en/global-issues/countering-terrorism#:~:text=The%20United%20Nations%20Office%20on,for%20a%20terrorism%2Dfree%20world.
