Protest against child labor by the Health and Safety Labor Watch: 'At least a thousand children have lost their lives during the AKP years!'

Hazal Güven - 12punto.com.tr

The Health and Safety Labor Watch (İSİG) gathered in Kadıköy to protest against child labor. Executives from the Istanbul Medical Chamber and DİSK, along with numerous university and high school students, attended the press statement. 

In the statement, it was expressed that at least a thousand children have fallen victim to work-related homicides during the AKP years. During the protest, where data regarding the controversial MESEM and ÇEDES practices of the government were shared, high school students who were victims of these projects also took the floor. A high school student speaking at the protest addressed the authorities, stating that a 16-year-old classmate who had been struggling against the MESEM practice has been in detention for 58 days. 

The full text of the press statement is as follows: 

"To Fight Against Child Labor! 

We are in the 23rd year of the AKP's governance and its rapid entrenchment at the center of the state in the years that followed. The agricultural, industrial, educational, and social policies implemented during this period have brought about the proletarianization of more children every day. On the other hand, this problem was attempted to be rendered invisible by creating an atmosphere as if “child labor” did not exist. 

However, you cannot cover up the reality of child labor. According to TURKSTAT data, the labor force participation rate of children in the 15-17 age group rose from 18.7 percent in 2022 to 22.1 percent in 2023 and 24.9 percent in 2024. In other words, it was announced that there were 970 thousand child laborers. However, this number does not include the 500 thousand children in MESEM, children working informally in this age group, and children working under the age of 15. We must underline that when we add these children, the number of child laborers in Turkey has reached 3-4 million. 

What reveals the reality of child labor most nakedly is work-related homicides. “At least 764 children in the last twelve years, and when we add the data that the state previously kept incomplete, at least 1,000 child laborers have lost their lives during the AKP years.” 

Child laborers are those who work seasonally with their families in the agricultural sector for wages or on their own fields; child laborers are those working under the name of MESEM who are at school one day a week and at the workplace four days; child laborers are those working unpaid within the scope of domestic labor in the outskirts of cities; child laborers are those working during summer vacation to learn a trade; child laborers are those given to an acquaintance to earn pocket money; child laborers are those selling tissues or collecting paper on the streets; child laborers are those who drop out of school to work in industry; child laborers are motorcycle couriers doing package delivery... 

'CHILD LABORER DEATHS CANNOT BE HIDDEN'

But child laborers are the future of this country, systematically forced into the ruthless production gears of Turkish capitalism even while they are still at primary school age, torn from their playgrounds, leaving their childhood, youth, and health in workplaces. It is definitely not a temporary phenomenon, but a conscious, systematic exploitation of cheap labor. This policy constitutes an important aspect of the declaration of 2025 as the 'Year of the Family' and is an expression of a trend parallel to the international policy of capital. The call for at least three children also emphasizes the importance of child labor, which is the most important component of the precarious labor pool. For capital, a cheap (free with MESEM) and unorganized mass of workers is indispensable. 

Child Labor Shifting from Agriculture to Industry and Construction, Massified Through MESEM: Although the agricultural sector still ranks first in child laborer deaths, the number of child laborers dying in industry and construction is increasing. There are reasons why child laborer deaths have shifted to cities despite the persistence of rural poverty. Because rural poverty has not ended but continues to deepen. However, the deepening of urban poverty, as we see especially in MESEM, child labor which has been lowered to middle schools and massified by state policies themselves, and the reality of Organized Industrial Zones concentrated in all Anatolian cities have now moved child laborer deaths to city centers and their peripheries. 

Because agricultural child laborers were completely excluded from social life and surrounded in the areas where they both lived and worked outside of residential centers, their deaths were rendered “invisible” by the state and capital. However, child laborers are now everywhere, in the centers of cities, in shopping malls, on the streets, at construction sites, in industry, and in OIZs. Every family or extended family has a child working, and there is a known working child on every street. Even though child labor is “attempted to be legitimized” with arguments of education, training, and raising skilled personnel, child laborer deaths cannot be hidden. 

In Conclusion 

In conclusion, the only way for Turkish industry to exist in world markets, especially in the EU market, is the export of cheap labor. Child labor is seen as essential for capital. At this very point, we have three basic demands: 

1-Child labor must be banned, vocational training must be planned in a way suitable for child development, and it must be within a framework of public rules. 

2-Education must be free at every level, and the curriculum must be restructured in the light of science and in a way that establishes a connection with life. 

3-Our living spaces must be cleared of drugs and gang formation and made suitable for the development of children.

However, expressing these within the system does not mean anything on its own. It is necessary to organize, to struggle, and to resist... 

Istanbul Medical Chamber / Istanbul Health and Safety Labor Watch"