One in every two children in Turkey employed as child worker

The number of minors who are employed in Turkey amounts to 49 percent in the age group 5 to 17, alarming research by DISK-AR, the research center of the Confederation of Revolutionary Workers’ Unions (DISK), has shown.

According to DISK-AR’s report, the number of children between ages 5 and 17 globally is 1.586 billion. About 306 million of these children are working, indicating that one in every five children in the world is a worker.

The report includes data from the Turkey Statistics Institute (TurkStat) Child Labor Statistics from 1994, 1997 and 2007, as well as data from the International Labor Organization (ILO) compiled between 2000 and 2004, and 2004 and 2008.

The data suggest that the exploitation of child labor has decreased by only 17 million children since 2004. However, this reduction does not apply to all age groups. For example, child employment for the age group 5-14 fell to 176 million in 2008 from 196 million in 2008, but the number of children in the age group 15-17 employed went to 129 million from 127 million in the same period. (...)