Perspective on Child Labor Situation in terms of Occupational Health and Safety: The Case of Turkey

Abstract

Child labor is a common social problem today. Short and long term policies are being developed for the solution. While the short-term goal is to improve the current situation and make it more suitable in terms of occupational health and safety (OHS), the long-term goal is to completely eliminate this problem. Within this scope; statistical calculations on child labor were made using the data of the Turkish Statistical Institute (TURKSTAT) for the year 2020. A general framework about the current situation of Turkey has been formed by preparing a risk analysis tables under seven headings. It has been determined that child labor takes many forms depending on the type of work done, age and gender, whether they work independently or with their families. It has been observed that the number of working boys is higher than the number of working girls and the reason why boys are exposed to more work accidents is due to the fact that they work more in the industry. In the study, it was considered that only child workers registered in the Social Security Institution (SSI) were examined. It should be aimed to create safer workplace environments in terms of OHS by making legal arrangements in order to protect these children and that children working informally are not a social problem for Turkey. For these purposes, the results of the research were evaluated, and the things to be done about ensuring child labor and OHS in Turkey and solution suggestions were presented.