39 Child Workers Died Over The Past 8 Months

At least 39 underage workers died in the first eight months of 2014, according to data from the Council of Worker Health and Work Safety (İİSG), a civil society organization that promotes work safety.

İİSG collected its data from news published in the press and reports from the families of the victims as well as information from labor organizations. The organization said 23 of the children who died while working worked in the agriculture industry. İİSG, which treats work deaths as murder, stated that seven of the children were girls and 32 were boys.

According to official data provided by the Ministry of Family and Social Policy at the end of 2013, 893,000 minors between the ages of six and 17, who number 15.2 million in Turkey, work. Under current legislation, minors younger than 15 cannot be employed, but according to the ministry's figures, 292,000 of the minors employed were aged 6-14. Only 20 percent of the 292,000 children receive compulsory education. The figures are no less depressing for the 15-17 age group, of which 66 percent do not attend high school.

Although children are more vulnerable as a group, Turkey has a poor record of worker safety in general. In May of this year, 301 miners died at a mine in Soma after a fire broke out in one of the galleries. Most recently, on Sept. 6, 10 workers died at a major high-rise residential complex construction site in İstanbul, a project being undertaken by Torunlar GYO, whose owner is known to be close to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Over the past week alone, approximately 10 workers have died in separate work accidents. The Justice and Development Party (AK Party) has been criticized for adopting lax safety measures to encourage investors. Workers' rights groups say most of the time, those responsible for the lack of safety at industrial establishments face little or no punishment for their negligence.

(Cihan/Today's Zaman)