A sad result: According to data compiled by Health and Safety Labour Watch* from the events it has seen, at least 42 working children lost their lives in the first seven months of 2024. At least nine of the dead children are known to have worked under the MESEM program.** Amendments to the Vocational Training Law in 2016 and 2021 paved the way for children to be used as cheap labor, with one day of “training” per week that remains on paper. Workerized children die at work and live lives without labor rights, face intense violence, and are physically and mentally injured. We discussed the issue with Ezgi Koman, who has been working in the field of children’s rights for years and is part of a program focused on MESEMs at the Children’s Rights Center FISA (Fikir ve Sanat Atölyesi).
In the past, those fighting against child labor focused on the informal sector and fought against a form of illegality. MESEMs have not only legalized child labor, but legitimized it and normalized it in line with the interests of capital. How do you, who work in the child sector, deal with this situation, where do you build your new battlefield?
It is very difficult to say that we are coping in a time when a child dies in a workplace murder almost every day. But yes, we have been revising our direction in the fight against child labor for some time. As the FISA Center for Children’s Rights, we have been running a program called “Rethinking Child Labor” for three years. The basic approach of this program is: If child labor cannot be treated independently of the current economic structure of Turkey and the world, if it cannot be considered separately from the economic, social and union rights of adults, what should we do? Will we wait until this changes to put an end to child labor? What if children continue to work in increasingly harsh conditions, face violence at work and even lose their lives in workplace murders? We ask these questions and want to find answers together with children. One of the answers we have found is organizing child workers. We have conducted a research on this issue. Children believe that they overcome many problems and become stronger when they are organized. That is why we also think in this way for the children who attend MESEMs, and there are movements in this direction independent of our thinking. In Antep, for example, a group of MESEM children and young people want to organize themselves into unions. We also try to support them.
I said that children work in unregistered areas, but this practice promoted by the Ministry of Education actually covers areas that cannot be registered in practice. What kind of irregularities do the children you interviewed most often express in relation to working conditions?
We interviewed children as part of an ongoing surveillance study. No matter how much the Ministry claims that they are, MESEMs are definitely not an educational and training environment for children, and this is known to everyone. One of the most important points we realized is that some sectors and professions are strictly prohibited for children in Turkey and in international conventions. Of course, we know that this prohibition is not followed and that children work unsupervised and unregistered in these sectors. Thanks to MESEMs, this situation is no longer unregistered. Because, for example, children are “legally” employed in a field where their employment is strictly prohibited, such as metalworking, on the grounds that they are studying. Another irregularity we often find is working hours. Children work even more in MESEMs than adults. It is very common to work up to 12-16 hours. There is absolutely no system of overtime pay. Many children work somewhere other than the workplace where they are registered with MESEM. They seem to be in MESEM only on paper. Another situation is that most of these children already have work experience. Also, some children have already been placed by their bosses/employers. The child wants to work and goes to the employer. The employer says, “I will hire you if you register with MESEM.” As you know, the salary of these children is deducted according to their salary grade and paid by the state. Another irregularity results in children dying in occupational killings, which has recently brought MESEMs onto the public agenda; even simple occupational health and safety procedures are not applied. Children are not examined when they start work. For example, a girl with asthma can work in a hair salon. If they suffer an accident at work, there is no treatment, accident analysis, etc. We also talked to the children about accidents at work or physical injuries. We asked questions such as: For example, whether precautions were taken, whether you were trained in school, etc. What was very interesting was that many children made the same statement: “There is a doctor’s bag.” From this you can understand the approach to worker health and safety. Or, for example, just using a plaster on an injury. These are not even recorded. And yet we know that the process that leads to occupational homicides starts with such unpreventable injuries.
This program is marketed as vocational training. But it is more like training cheap labor than vocational training, as if the value of the work of those who start here will always be less, even if they become skilled workers. Have you followed any of the children who became workers through MESEM?
We didn’t follow anyone like that. But 19-year-olds who left MESEM continued in the same industry.
The first thing that springs to mind is industrial work. But aren’t the sectors diverse? For example, where do girls work in the service sector and where do adults come into visible contact with the work of these child laborers?
Although the number of boys attending MESEM is higher, girls are also enrolled in these centers. There are also girls who work in industry, in departments such as engines and mechanical engineering. But they are mostly employed in workplaces such as hairdressers and beauty salons. And then there are hotels. In addition to the many problems they face because they are children, girls can be subjected to sexual violence and harassment by customers, adult workers and employers. This happens more often than we think. In an interview we asked the question “How do you feel when you commute?” She said that she sometimes feels uncomfortable. Let’s not forget that workplaces are a kind of “closed institution” for children. They are under pressure from their employers and parents and are mostly here out of necessity. This makes them vulnerable to all kinds of violence. Of course, girls feel this pressure and violence – in its various forms – more intensely.
MESEMs offer one day of classes per week on paper, but in reality they extend a completed educational life. There have always been children who have had to work. Your research shows that some of the children enrolled in MESEMs started working before they even reached high school age. How are the economic crisis and increasing and widespread poverty affecting child labor?
Child labour is a question of poverty, or rather of impoverishment. Someone always has to be poor to be exploited as cheap labour. While robotisation is rampant in some parts of the world, in many other parts of the world children, women and migrants continue to be used as cheap labour. As long as impoverishment, discrimination and inequality in access to rights and freedoms persist, child labour will unfortunately increase. In addition to the increase in the number of child labourers, this also increases violence in the workplace, the inability of children to receive their wages and – worst of all – murders in the workplace. The already difficult lives of children become even more difficult.
There is talk of lowering the age of entry to MESEM to 12. What might this mean?
While we persistently try to explain how MESEMs affect children, how children are exploited here and even lose their lives, the discussion about the age of 12 is really incomprehensible. Let me make it clear that this is a violation of children’s rights. Turkey signed the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1990. According to this convention, the state is responsible for protecting children’s right to life and protecting children from mistreatment, violence and abuse. Preventing their employment is also part of it. There are other conventions like this. For example, ILO conventions. Their obligations under this convention require this. At a very young age of 12, their inclusion in a system where even adults are forced and exploited will lead to many rights violations. This is really very worrying. Today we are talking about children aged 15-16 who attend MESEMs. They cannot handle harsh working conditions and long working hours. We know that the children who lost their lives in occupational killings were children who attended MESEMs directly. The age of 12 carries much greater risks. Such a regulation is extremely dangerous and a clear violation of rights. Child labor exploits children not only in terms of work. It has incredibly negative effects on the physical, psychological and personal development of children in a place where even adults have a very hard time. According to existing laws and international conventions, children aged 12 and over are not allowed to work in Turkey. But by changing the legislation on education in this way, you legitimize the labor exploitation of 12-year-old children. It is said: “He doesn’t work, he goes to school.” All mechanisms are in reality a way to legitimize child labor.
* Health and Safety Labour Watch-Turkey is a network organization of workers and their families from different sectors, work areas and occupations (industry/service/agriculture, metal workers, seasonal agricultural workers, bank employees, health workers, construction workers, doctors, engineers, academics, occupational safety specialists, etc.) fighting for healthy and safe living and working conditions. HESA Labour Watch was launched in Istanbul in 2001, followed by activities in Kocaeli and Ankara provinces. It aims to expand the struggle for occupational safety to a larger number of centers, especially in the industrial provinces.
** Vocational Education Center (Mesleki Eğitim Merkezi, MESEM for short), formerly known as Training Center, was included in the field of formal and compulsory education on 09.12.2016. It provides education under the management of the Ministry of National Education, General Directorate of Vocational and Technical Education. Students who have completed at least secondary school can enroll and the duration of education is 4 years. Those who graduate from this school receive both a high school diploma and a master’s certificate.