Child labor: The physical growth and development of working girls

This study was approved by Ethics Committee since it was done on children (Annex 1). Children are commonly employed in all societies, especially underdeveloped economies. The studies on the physical development of working children are majorly made on boys and focus on weight and height values. There are no comprehensive studies on the physical development of working girls. From this point of view, in this study, it is aimed to reveal how the physical development of working girls is affected by working conditions. Two hundred and thirty-one working girls aged between 14 through 20 have composed the sample of this research. 196 individuals from the same age group and sex were also considered as control group. These individuals were selected from non-working individuals but belonged to the same socioeconomic conditions. Working girls were selected from 6 vocational training centers affiliated to Ministry of National Education. Individuals belonging to the control group were also selected from the schools in the provinces where vocational training centers were identified. Socioeconomic and demographic characteristics of working and school children, information of working conditions and data including 7 anthropometric measurements taken from children were recorded in questionnaire form. According to the findings of this study, the children belong to families that has low socioeconomic structure and education level. It is determined that the majority of girls working as hairdressers started working at 14, they have 4-5 years of working history and more than half working 7 days a week and about %94 working 10-14 hours a day. The body weight values of working children are lower than school children, and the result is that working children are shorter. It has been found that working children are behind the school children in terms of both arm length and leg length. It has been determined that the wrist width values tend to be wider than school children, while the ankle width generally has larger values for school children. The results of the study on the working conditions of the children reveal that girls are working under heavy conditions and working long hours. When we evaluate all the findings together, we have reached the conclusion that working girls have fallen back in terms of physical growth and development from school children who have the same socioeconomic level, and working conditions leave different levels of influence in different parts of the body. Therefore, all findings show that child labor is a phenomenon that must be abolished. Keywords: Anthropology, anthropometry, growth and development, childhood, child labor, working children, working girls