Three underage workers died in workplace accidents in Turkey in the past week, intensifying public concern over child labor and unsafe working conditions for minors.
On Tuesday in Niğde, central Turkey, 14-year-old Abdurrahman Özkul tragically died after his arm was caught in a machine at the plastic recycling factory where he worked. The accident resulted in his arm being torn from the shoulder. Abdurrahman had left school earlier this year to help support his family by working at the factory.
On Sunday 14-year-old Syrian worker Yusuf Misri died after being struck in the face by a drill at the construction site where he was working in the central province of Konya. In another tragic death, on April 7, 17-year-old Mehmet Özarslan fell into the river while performing maintenance on a construction vehicle at the sand quarry where he worked in central Turkey’s Kayseri province. His body was recovered 26 hours later.
Child labor and underage fatalities from workplace accidents remain a serious issue in Turkey, reaching a record high in 2024 with 71 reported deaths.
The Turkish government pledged to effectively prevent such fatalities with the National Program to Combat Child Labor for the 2017-2023 period, following the first phase implemented from 2005 to 2015. This government initiative aimed to eliminate child labor, particularly in high-risk sectors with serious health and safety concerns. The program focused on providing economic support to families to reduce dependence on child labor, strengthening policies to prevent its occurrence and promoting school attendance.
However, unions and human rights advocates said the high death toll indicates this program was not completely successful and that poverty is the number one reason why children had to work, requiring the government to develop better policies to tackle poverty.
“Children are being employed illegally, in hazardous jobs, and without insurance. The root cause of this is poverty. Our real problem is that child worker deaths are treated as normal,” said journalist Melike Şahin.
“Deep poverty pulls these 14-year-old children away from education. In just the 2023–2024 academic year alone, a total of 612,814 children were out of school,” said Hacer Foggo, founder of the Istanbul-based Deep Poverty Network.
The Health and Safety Labor Watch (İSİG) shared news of the recent child labor deaths on their social media account, along with a call for urgent reforms the government must implement.
“Child labor must be abolished, and vocational education must be designed to align with healthy child development, operating within a regulated public framework. Education should be free at all levels, and the curriculum must be restructured based on scientific principles and real-world relevance. Our communities must be cleared of drugs and gang activity and transformed into environments that support children’s growth through access to sports, arts, cultural events and more. But merely making demands within the existing system is not enough. We must organize, resist and take collective action. Now is the time to protect our children and to build the tools for this struggle together with them,” İSİG said.
İSİG began to record occupational fatalities in 2011. The platform also records the number of workers who died due to a lack of work safety in past years in addition to campaigning for stricter measures to maintain safety in workplaces.
