Child labour in seasonal agriculture: A research of multidimensional exploitation in Niğde province

This study deals with the issue of child labour in seasonal agriculture. Although the history of child labour can be dated back to the Sumerians, the Industrial Revolution created an important break in child labour in terms of quality and quantity. Child labour in seasonal agriculture, on the other hand, has experienced a significant break with the impact of capitalism on small commodity production. Children, who were used as unpaid labour force in the household, started to become wage workers with the landlessness of the peasants. Seasonal agriculture, which is carried out by the migration of households from one province to another, is still mostly labor-intensive in a country like Turkey where agriculture is important. Seasonal agriculture is an area where the use of child labour is intense due to its structure as a household. Although there are many studies on this subject, the number of studies dealing with the systematic exploitation of children in a multidimensional way is limited. The study deals with the household, which is the supply side, and the employer, which is the demand side, of child labour at the micro level. At the meso level, although the existence of child labour is known, the role of the state, which is the producer of the chain of policies that does not notice those children and cannot protect them even if they do, is examined. At the macro level, the exploitation of child labour created by multinational companies, supply chains and global trade network in agricultural production, which starts in a small town and ends in the international market, is explored. This thesis study covers the phenomenon of child labour in seasonal agriculture with field work, one of the qualitative research designs; It examines the example of Niğde, which is an important city in Turkey's agricultural production with products such as apples, cherries and potatoes. Findings of the study; It is based on field research where information was collected through semi-structured interview and unstructured observation techniques. Due to the scattered structure of agricultural production in Niğde, the field research was carried out in two different environments, as there are tent areas on all the peripheries of the provincial borders. In this context, Konaklı Town, where one of the biggest tent areas of the province is located, and; It was held in Çukurkuyu Town. Within the scope of the research, 13 children, 7 parents, 3 sergeants, 3 employer representatives, 2 public personnel, a total of 28 people were interviewed. The findings of the field research carried out in Niğde show that all workers, regardless of adult or child, refugee or local, male or female, receive equal wages in agricultural production in Niğde province. This situation, which depends on the unique conditions of Niğde province, seems necessary to catch the required number of workers. Among the tent residents interviewed one year apart, it was observed that the children who did not participate in production in the first year started to work in the second year for economic reasons. It should be noted that the generalized practice of "Labour comes from the child, wages go to the household" is also valid in Niğde province. Emphasizing the necessity of informality and insecurity for agricultural production, it is stated that employers apply to all labor force, including children, at the stage of termination of production. The findings of the study, which examines the transfer of the production process, which includes child labour, from rural to transnational, child labour in seasonal agriculture; It shows that the economic conditions of the households, the production structure and capacity of the employers are shaped by the education, agriculture, migration and labor policies of the state.