Özgür Hüseyin Akış/HALKWEB March 3 is one of the symbolic dates of the struggle against occupational homicides in Turkey. It is the anniversary of the 1992 Kozlu disaster in which hundreds of miners lost their lives. That huge explosion in Zonguldak was not just an ’accident“; it was an occupational homicide caused by lack of supervision, privatization policies and production pressure.
Despite the passing years, there is one fact that has not changed: Labor murders continue in Turkey. And among these deaths are children.
Child Labor: The Unseen Danger
Seasonal labor in the fields, apprenticeships in industrial sites, construction sites, textile workshops... Multigrant children are also employed. Most of the time unregistered, uninsured and precarious. In jobs that are not safe even for adults, children are left alone with the risk of death.
At the international level, the International Labor Organization mandates the elimination of the worst forms of child labor. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Turkey is a party, also explicitly stipulates the protection of children from economic exploitation. However, the gap between legislation and reality is deep.
Not a Work Accident, but a Work Murder
“The concept of ”work accident" makes responsibility invisible. However, when the necessary occupational safety measures are not taken, when inspections are not carried out, when the pressure of production overrides human life, every death is political. This is why labor organizations have been using the correct term for years: occupational homicide.
Child labor is also a part of this structure. As the education system is integrated into the market and poverty deepens, child labor is seen as cheap labor. In particular, children who are put into production under the name of vocational training spend most of the week at workplaces. This situation both detaches children from education and exposes them to the risk of occupational homicides.
Meaning of March 3rd
March 3 is not only the anniversary of a past tragedy. It is also the day to ask the question:
Is it possible to have a country where children do not work or die?
The answer lies in the reconstruction of public responsibility:
Ending practices that encourage child labor,
Public policies to end family poverty
Establish independent and effective audit mechanisms,
Securing trade union rights.
The miners who died in Kozlu are the symbol of the occupational murders that still continue today. But the death of children is the heaviest conscience burden of this picture.
On March 3, it is necessary to commemorate not only the miners, but also the children who lost their lives in the workshops, construction sites and fields. Because work murders are class-based. And child labor is the most naked form of this class injustice.
To forget is to normalize.
Remembering is a struggle.