57,000 children work over 40 hours a week in Turkey: Report

ISTANBUL

Around 57,000 children work over 40 hours a week in Turkey, according to a new study by Bahçeşehir University’s Center for Economic and Social Research (BETAM).

The 2012 Children Workforce Survey, released on Jan. 3, said 292,000 children were in the workforce in the country, and 75 percent of them worked in family business without receiving any financial compensation.

Around half of the children laborers worked for an average of one hour per day, according to the study. However, around 47,000 children worked more than 40 hours a week, generally for very low wages. Around 10,000 children worked over 40 hours a week at home.

“Even if these children continue to go to school, it is very likely that they will suffer and receive a poor quality education,” said the study, warning policy-makers and researchers of the negative effects of child labor.

Turkey needs to take measures to gradually decrease the number of child laborers in the country and put an end to the issue in the long-term, in line with the agreements it signed with the International Labor Organization in 1992, added the study.

The latest figures show that little progress has been made in recent years, it also stated.

The number of children workers decreased by 28,000 from 2006 to 2012, but this did not create a big difference as the total fertility rate had also been decreasing in the country, leaving essentially untouched the rate of child laborers aged 6-14 relative to the entire population, at around 2.6 percent.