Some 720,000 child laborers work across country

ANKARA

The number of working children in the five-17 age group across Turkey is 720,000, said an official from the Family and Social Policies Ministry, citing the Turkish Statistical Institute’s (TÜİK) 2019 data.

Members of the Child Rights Sub-Committee, established within the Human Rights Inquiry Commission of the Turkish Parliament, met in Ankara on Nov. 12.

Informing the commission members, ministry official Nurcan Önder stated that the number of children between the ages of five-17 working in the country is around 720,000.

Önder said that 30.8 percent of working children work in agriculture, 45.5 percent in the services sector and 23.7 percent in industry.

“Some 70.6 percent of these children are boys and 29.4 percent are girls. Some 79.7 percent of working children are in the 15-17 age group, 15.9 percent are in the 12-14 age group and 4.4 percent are in the five-11 age group,” Önder said.

Explaining that they established a “Unit Against Child Labor” within the ministry, Önder said that they wanted to conduct activities in the field of combating child labor more effective with this unit.

“We want to increase the applicability and traceability of centrally produced policies at a local level,” she said.