Two child workers lose their lives in Osmaniye, Samsun

* Harun Mete Şahin and Serhat Sarıyıldırım

** Sources: Anadolu Agency (AA) - İSİG Assembly

Click to read the article in Turkish / Kurdish

Two child workers lost their lives in two provinces of Turkey yesterday (October 25). While a child fell into an irrigation canal in Turkey's Central Anatolian Osmaniye province, a child working in an industrial estate in Samsun fainted shortly after his shift had ended.

16-year-old Serhat Sarıyıldırım was watering an agricultural field in the village of Kümbet in Kadirli, Osmaniye.

He lost his balance and fell into water while trying to wash his hands in an irrigation canal of State Hydraulic Works (DSİ). A person in the vicinity saw the incident, took the child out of the water and called an ambulance.

Taken to the Kadirli State Hospital by the paramedic teams, Serhat Sarıyıldırım has lost his life despite all efforts.

He fainted after his shift had ended

In Turkey's Black Sea province of Samsun, 14-year-old Harun Mete Şahin, who was working as an apprentice in an industrial estate, fainted in the middle of the street while he was on his way to home from work.

Informed by the people who saw the child fainting, paramedic teams came to the scene of the incident and took the child to the Vezirköprü State Hospital. Şahin lost his life at the hospital where he was being treated.

The deceased body of the child has been sent to the Samsun Forensic Medicine Institution so that the cause of his death can be found out.

Minister said struggle was 'going well'

According to the recent data shared by the Health and Safety Labor Watch (İSİG Assembly), at least 177 workers lost their lives in occupational homicides in September 2020 and at least 1,493 workers lost their lives while working in the first nine months of 2020. While six of the deceased were children in September, seven of them were women, five were migrants (three from Syria and two from Afghanistan) and four were unionized workers.

Making a statement on the occasion of June 12 World Day Against Child Labor, Minister of Family, Labor and Social Services Zehra Zümrüt Selçuk said that Turkey's struggle against child labor was successfully continuing and indicated that the rate of child labor dropped from 10.3 percent in 1999 to 4.4 percent in 2019. (AÖ/SD)