Participation of Syrian Refugee Children who Live in Turkey in Work Life and Child Workers Problem

Abstract

With the evolution of civil commotions into a civil war in Syria in 2011, millions of people who dream of a better life were forced to leave their home countries and migrated to various parts across the World. In this context, Turkey has received most influx of refugees and has been most affected country by these migrations not only due to its location with respect to Europe but also due to becoming developed in terms of  political, economic and cultural aspects compared with other Middle East countries and due to historical ties between Turkey and Syria.

Most sensitive group of this migration process is refugee children. In this study, access to education and training of refugee children  under the age of 18 which constitute the largest part of Syrian refugee community, participation in work life  together with living a quality life and the problems encountered in work life in the Province of Konya were investigated. Following the investigation, what regulations were introduced to prevent employment and exploitation of refugee children have been searched, and it was examined whether these regulations were enough or not to solve these problems. In literature survey of this work, legislative regulations, too, currently in force in addition to protection works of refugee children after mass migration to Turkey have been investigated. Then, general evaluations after investigation findings were obtained  and solution offers for the problems of Syrian refugee children in work life have been presented.