Children First: Eliminating Child Labour

Children should be working — in school!

The situation

Nearly 18 million people or 25.6% of the population of Turkey were living with poverty in 2004, so it is unsurprising that many families need their children to help with household income. Because child labourers often drop out or never enroll in school, they have few prospects for improving their situation. It seems that labouring on the farm or on the streets is the most that many families can aspire to for their children.

Many working children are from migrant families, travelling for much of the year in search of low–paid employment in the agricultural sector. These families often live in squalid conditions without access to health care or education for their children. Growing numbers engaging in street life have led to a higher incidence of children selling small items to passers–by on the streets of the inner cities and larger towns.

The unregistered labour contribution of children and women in these situations means that they remain statistically invisible as a result. The labour contribution of girls especially is often exploited within the home as unpaid and unrecognised domestic labour.

In 2002, 4.2% of children between the ages of 6 and 14 years of age and 28% of those between the ages of 15 and 17 were estimated to be working in Turkey. Since more comprehensive and up to date information on working children does not exist and poverty rates have not substantially improved, there is little to suggest that numbers of working children have been reduced.

If Turkey’s programme to eliminate the worst forms of child labour by 2015 is to succeed, more current statistical research and close monitoring of the situation of working children is needed.

The solution

A comprehensive national survey of child labour should be funded in order to inform policies and programmes that will ultimately eliminate the problem for good.

A number of steps also need to be taken to alleviate the situation of children who are currently missing out on their education because they are working. These include:

• raising public awareness of the harmful effects of labour on children;
• better regulation of the agricultural sector to prevent exploitation of children as cheap labour;
• support for city councils to help reduce numbers of children engaging in street life.
• provision of a flexible curriculum to meet the needs of child workers returning to school;
• provision of more schoolspace to accommodate increased access;
• family and cultural traditions that take child labour for granted need to be challenged.

The activities

An integrated programme of awareness raising, social mobilisation, capacity building and research needs to be put in place.

A national awareness campaign will use print and broadcast media to emphasise the negative effects of child labour.

Social mobilisation will:

• train NGOs to go door–to–door and inform families about the damaging effects of child labour and the importance of education;
• support theatre and sporting events to keep the issue in the public eye.

Capacity building will provide:

• training and materials for parenting education classes;
• in–service training for teachers and guidance counsellors on the catch–up primary education curriculum;
• training for law enforcement officers on how to deal with working children, their families and employers;
• monitoring and management tools for provincial and national departments of the Ministry of Labour and Social security.

Research and monitoring will involve:

• funding the national child labour survey;
• installation of data collection and monitoring software.

The result

Successful elimination of the worst forms of child labour means that working children will be able to break the cycle of poorly paid, unskilled work in which they and their families are trapped. It will also mean that:

• they will also enjoy their right to better health and education and the realisation of their development potential;
• they will become more socially competent and responsible members of the community.

The benefits to Turkey will include:

• a greater understanding of the child labour situation and the capacity to monitor the effectiveness of policy and programmes;
• increased public awareness about the harmful effects of child labour;
• reduced numbers of working children;
• improved school attendance rates;
• more educated and skilled human resources to support development;
• fulfilment of commitments as one of the original six participating countries in the 1992 IPEC agreement to eliminate child labour.

For sponsors

This important campaign in support of Turkey’s accession plans for the EU will receive international and national recognition.

Highly visible support for the elimination of child exploitation will increase the sponsor’s standing as a responsible, caring agent of social change.

All public information material and training kits will feature the brand of sponsoring agencies, businesses and corporations.

Previous page  |  Next page

ARCHIVE

Search UNICEF Turkey
   

• Advanced Search

Download the Eliminating Child Labour brochure in pdf format [PDF 380KB] or alternatively download a zipped porfolio of the seven funding brochures [ZIP 1.8MB].

 * How to use RSS …