At least 415 Turks died in work accidents in first three months of year: Report

ISTANBUL

DHA photo

At least 415 workers have died in the first three months of 2016, according to a monthly report recently released by a non-governmental organization dealing with worker health and safety issues, with at least 157 worker deaths in March alone.

The number of worker deaths in the first three months of 2015 totaled at least 415, said the Worker Health and Work Safety Assembly (İSİGM) report, compiled with data in print and online media, labor unions and organizations. 

İSİGM is an NGO comprised of workers, worker relatives, doctors, engineers, academics, journalists, lawyers who deal with labor issues.

“We saw the highest number of worker deaths in the first three months of the year since 2012, when we first started to record the related data,” said the organization on its website on April 4. 

The number of worker deaths in March has increased year-on-year by 9 percent compared to the same month of 2015, with the number of worker deaths totaling 140 in March 2015.


Child laborer deaths 

The report noted that the sectors where the most worker deaths were seen this past month were agriculture, construction and transportation. According to the report, some 34 of the 157 workers who died in March were in the agriculture sector, while 33 were in construction and 21 were in transportation. 

In the same month, 32 workers died in traffic accidents, 28 died in falls and 25 died in collapses at workplaces.

Some four of the workers who died in the same period were child workers, while two were under the age of 14, according to the report, which cited a 10-year-old boy killed by fall from a donkey while feeding sheep and a 12-year-old boy stabbed to death by a person under-the-influence in a home appliance store.

Most of the worker deaths in March were seen in Istanbul, Ankara, the Mediterranean resort of Antalya and the northwestern province of Bursa. Some 17 of the worker deaths in March occurred in Istanbul, while 11 occurred in Ankara and nine occurred in Antalya. These provinces were followed by the central Anatolian province of Konya with seven deaths and the Aegean province of Muğla and the Marmara province of Tekirdağ with six worker deaths each, according to the report.