The Child Labor Problem in Turkish Agriculture: What Can We Do?

Abstract

This paper basically aims to construct a realistic profile of children working in the agriculture labour force in the area selected, and to establish how and to what extent children participate in the process of agricultural production, and to raise awareness of the current and potential threats and risks which children face when working in the agricultural sector. The research is based on data of original quality obtained from face-to-face interviews through a survey. A field study was conducted in the districts of Kinik and Kiraz with a low Development of a Socio-Economic Index in the province of Izmir, Turkey. Numerous findings were found in the paper, and significant findings were obtained, i.e. that those children who work in the agricultural sector are neglected within the scope of the studies on combating child labour; that the mean age of the interviewed child labours, 11.12 years, is quite below the minimum age of working; that 81 % of the interviewed children both go to school and are waged labours in agricultural jobs; that the children could not go on receiving education after compulsory education for economic reasons and owing to the problems they had experienced in education, and sexual discrimination; that they are exposed to dangers and risks resulting from mental, physical, chemical and environmental factors as they are very young; that they did not take any measures to protect them from the factors concerned and that they have some health problems because of their long working hours as well as hard and intensive working conditions and inadequate and imbalanced nutrition.