Child Workers Near 900,000 in Turkey

According to a recent report released by Turkey's main statistics institute, there are currently 893,000 child workers out of 15,247,000 children between 6 and 17 years old - a toll that constituted 20.6 percent of entire population in Turkey.

The report cited that 5.9 percent of children in Turkey engaged in economic activity. Compared to similar statistics in 2006, 3,000 new child workers joined Turkey's workforce.

Half of child workers in cities

In detail, the report revealed that there are 262,000 child workers between 6 and 14 years old, while the number of child workers between 15 and 17 years old are 601,000.

The employment rates for 6-14 years old turned out 2.6 percent, and 15.6 for  15-17 years old.

The distribution of child workers according to demographics (city/countryside) turned out 44.8 and 55.2 percent.

Half of child workers unschooled

Some of the highlights from the report included:

* Out of all children between 6-17 years old in Turkey, 8.5 percent of children cannot go to school.

* Out of all child workers in Turkey, 50.2 percent cannot go to school.

* The activity distribution of schooled children included domestic work (50.2 percent), economic activity (3.2 percent) and no activity at all (46.6 percent).

* The activity distribution of unschooled children included domestic work (38.8 percent), economic activity (34.5 percent) and no activity at all (26.7 percent).

* The distribution of schooled child workers turned out 81.8 among 6-14 age group and34.3 among 15-17 age group.

* The distribution of child workers according to sector is as follows: agriculture (44.5 percent, 339,000), industry (24.3 percent, 217,000) and service (31 percent, 227,000).

* The distribution of child workers according is as follows: Paid (56.2 percent, 470,000) and unpaid (46.2 percent, 413,000).

Children working on the street

In 2012, following an official parliamentary inquiry by MHP deputy Özcan Yeniçeri, Family and Social Policies Minister Fatma Şahin disclosed the number of children who benefit from the ministries aids as 5851. The same rate was 6784 in 2007, 7124 in 2008,7560 in 2009, 5178 in 2010, and 6402 in 2011. (YY)