In a period where the cotton harvest has coincided with the start of the academic year, thousands of students have to work in cotton fields instead of beginning school. In the Siverek district of Turkey’s southeastern province of Şanlıurfa, where there are about 90,000 students, the children of agricultural workers with financial difficulties have gone to the cotton fields instead of their schools to pick cotton.
15 THOUSAND CHILDREN IN COTTON FIELDS
While the number of students working as seasonal workers throughout the district is about 15 thousand, most of these students have gone out of the province with their families to work.
"I want to go to school; the cotton will deplete 1.5 months later and we will go to school, then. I miss my school and my friends, I want to study to not to fall behind of them in the class", a 6th-grade student Feride Demir, a member of the family of 10 working in a cotton field, says.
"THE HARVEST WILL END 1.5 MONTHS LATER"
Stating that she could not go to school in the new school year due to the cotton harvest, Nurhayat Demir, a 15-year-old high school student from the same family, says that she misses her school. She claims that she will go back to her education when the harvest ends in a month and a half, while expressing her concerns about falling behind in the class because of her late start.
Noting that the cotton harvest lasts for 40-45 days, Ömer Demir, the father of the family, states "One of my daughters has failed school. We have 3,000-3,500 Turkish Lira (about $840-$980). Our children miss their school, and they cannot pick cotton well due to their tender ages."
"THERE IS NO OTHER WORK TO DO, SO ALL WE HAVE TO HARVEST COTTON"
Saying that they live in a rural neighbourhood in Siverek, and they have to work as agricultural workers because there is no other work to do in the district, Yusuf Sağır states that he lives with his family by picking cotton. Noting that they have to bring the students at home to the cotton fields, Sağır also said, ‘‘We have to work as seasonal workers. We come with our families to work here as seasonal workers, because there are no other job opportunities in the village. Our students fall behind in their classes, but unfortunately, they have to work for a month. We will work here for a month until the seasonal work has ended, because we do not have another job to do."
Stating that their income will be about 10,000 TL (about $2,799.96) at the end of the cotton harvest, Sağır says that they will spend the winter with this amount of money, pointing out that the daily wage of a student working in cotton fields is around 30-40 TL ($8,40-$11,20).
Seasonal workers a predominantly composed of school-aged children lose their lives every year due to poor transportation and housing conditions in Turkey.
According to a report prepared by the Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions of Turkey (DİSK) in 2015, seasonal agricultural labour, one of the worst forms of child labour, has tended to increase in Turkey in recent years under the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). The report indicates that the ratio of children working in agriculture to the number of child workers is 45 percent, while the number of child workers working in the agricultural sector increased from 326,000 to 399,000.
