‘School doesn’t pay,’ say refugee child laborers
Kathimerini recounts the stories of Syrian minors working up to 11 hours a day in manufacturing workshops in the Turkish town of Izmir
The sparks fly just inches from his face but Omar seems oblivious, bent over his welding torch, without a mask or goggles. With blackened walls, the workshop is like his second home here in Izmir on Turkey’s western coast. He helps make office chairs for export to the Balkans, working up to 11 hours a day, six days a week – even though he’s just 14 years old.
“Time goes by very slowly,” he tells us on his break. His cheeks are smudged with dirt and his eyes red. A broken front tooth peeks out when he speaks, the result of an accident a few months ago when he was hit by a car on his way home from work.
“When I get home, I wash, eat a few bites and sleep as soon as my head hits the pillow. Then it’s back to the shop in the morning,” he says. “I don’t know what the future holds. We don’t know when we’ll die – today or tomorrow.”
Omar is from Aleppo in Syria and has been in Turkey for two years with his parents and four siblings. Of the other children, the two eldest – 16year-old Ousama and 15-year-old Adel – work at a clothing factory. Together with Omar, they are the only earners in the seven-member family.
Kathimerini had traveled to Izmir in 2015 to investigate the activities of migrant smuggling networks. At the time, the arrival of refugee caravans was a daily occurrence in the district of Basmane. Dozens of migrants and refugees could be seen hanging around parks and squares, laden with backpacks. They bedded down in the rooms and hallways of cheap hotels. Deals to secure transport to Europe were made in broad daylight and the local economy had adapted to their presence. Even barbershops sold life jackets, charging 35 Turkish lira (roughly 8 euros) apiece.
Back in Basmane
Two years later, we have returned to the same district, not to meet those who will be attempting the dangerous crossing to Greece and the European Union, but to speak to those who have been left behind. The haggling with smugglers is no longer so obvious. Basmane’s squares and parks look empty. But on the road leading to the airport, in the industrial zone of Karabaglar, some Syrian children are toiling away at adults’ work.
In just three days we meet 14 children from Syria, aged from 10 to 16, who work at car repair shops and clothing and furniture manufacturers. We spoke to their parents and em- ployers, though four businesses did not allow us to enter the premises when we explained our mission – possibly because they were harboring underage workers.
The narrow streets of Karabaglar stink of exhaust and burning plastic. Trucks riding on their rims under heavy loads thunder through without any regard for pedestrians. The metallic clang of production stops only at the tea break.
Safwan is 10 years old and an expert on the area. Slight and fleet-footed, he nips around with his steel tray from dawn to dusk, serving tea and coffee orders. When we meet the Turkish owner of the shop where he works it’s already noon and the boy can barely keep his eyes open. He’s wearing a blue Transformers T-shirt. “I’m working to help my parents,” he says. He gets paid 100 lira (around 24 euros) a week.
A few blocks away, in a signless building with grimy windows, 16year-old Daoud is doing tough work, constructing chrome chairs. The metal frames are dipped – by adult workers – in tanks holding chemicals or water, then buffed by machine and dumped at Daoud’s post. Dressed in a holeriddled T-shirt with slippers on his feet, the Syrian boy rubs the frames with sawdust until every trace of water has been absorbed and then stacks them. His adult brother works in the same factory.
The problem of child labor did not appear in Turkey with the refugee crisis. In the period from 2001 to 2006 (before the outbreak of the Syrian civil war) Turkish authorities implemented two programs for cracking down on the worst forms of child labor, in furniture and footwear manufacturing, as well as auto repair. One of these programs was responsible for pulling 3,479 children under the age of 15 out of factories and sending them to school.
According to data provided to Kathimerini by UNICEF, Turkey had around 3 million child laborers in the mid-1990s; now this number does not exceed 850,000.
Turkey today is home to more than 3 million Syrian refugees, mainly scattered along the southern borders, in Istanbul and on the Aegean coast. UNICEF data indicates that over 490,000 Syrian children are attending classes at Turkish schools or temporary education centers. Another 380,000 children, however, are believed to be outside any system of education.
‘This is reality’
“This is not acceptable from a humanitarian perspective, but this is reality, unfortunately. I am confident that the Turkish government are dealing with the problem and will reduce the number of child workers. But it is not easy for a country dealing with such a large refugee population,” says Murat Erdogan, an assistant professor at Hacettepe University who specializes in immigration issues.
Turkish legislation sets the minimum age limit of workers at 15 for regular jobs and 18 for hazardous professions.
In Karabaglar, Zeydan, a Kurd from the city of Mardin, claims he has never employed a child below the age of 15. When we meet him at his factory, 25 workers are busy at the machines, sewing seams in women’s trousers that will be sold in Germany, France and the Netherlands.
“I never went to school,” says Zeydan. “I have worked at all sorts of different jobs since I was 11. I don’t agree with children working. I’ve done it and I know it’s wrong. Sometimes, though, they have to.”
Beyond the tinted windows of the cubicle that serves as his office, we see three teenagers among the workers. One of them, 15-year-old Runi, hails from Syria. “My father has been left behind, which is why I’m working. I’m here with two siblings and our mother. My dream is to become a policeman, but I don’t know if this will be possible,” he says.
Runi has not been to school since arriving in Turkey. Omar, by contrast, did a few months of classes before getting a job at the chair workshop. “I’d like to go to school,” he says. “But school doesn’t pay.”
The dilemma of whether to send their children to school or work is one of the key topics of conversation among the Syrian families we meet in Izmir.
“My youngest son is 7 years old, and I’m definitely sending him to school. Not my eldest daughter, though, because we need the money,” says Yasser Alhasan. He explains that back problems prevent him from working, adding that his 13-year-old daughter has already found a job at a clothing manufacturer. “Go to any refugee family and you’ll find a similar situation,” he says.