In Turkey, a Syrian child ‘has to work to survive’
ISTANBUL — When he was 9, Ahmad Suleiman watched his father die from a battlefield wound in Syria. Four years later, he now puts in 12-hour shifts at a damp and squalid textile factory in Istanbul as the primary breadwinner for his family, which fled to Turkey after his father’s death.
Over 1 million Syrian children live in Turkey, and thousands of them, like Ahmad, are in sweatshops, factories or vegetable fields instead of in a classroom, members of a lost generation who have been robbed of their youth by war.
Like many others in his situation, while he toils for his family, Ahmad is paying a steep price. “I want to send Ahmad to school because he doesn’t know how to read and write and can’t understand the bus signs,” said his mother, Zainab Suleiman, 33. “But I have no choice. He has to work to survive.”
Many of the children who arrive in Turkey have already lost years of schooling because of the war. Before the conflict, 99 percent of Syrian children were enrolled in primary schools and 82 percent in secondary schools, UNICEF has reported. Today, nearly 3 million Syrian children are out of school, and for those in Turkey, the education gap has either grown longer or become permanent.
While more than 1 million Syrians have reached Europe, many more — 3 million in all, including Ahmad’s family — have been forced by poverty to stay in Turkey, where their prospects are bleak.
The recent deal between the European Union and Turkey to curb the flow of illegal migration into Europe intended to protect Syrians from dying in the Aegean Sea and to improve, with billions of dollars in aid from Europe, the conditions for those living in Turkey.
“I ENJOY WORKING, AND I DON’T GET TREATED BADLY. I’VE GOT TO TAKE CARE OF MY FAMILY, AND THIS IS THE ONLY WAY TO DO THAT” – AHMAD SULEIMAN
Those promises were supposed to mean more children in school, and work permits for their parents.
Instead, the deal may collapse over an issue unrelated to the plight of Syrians: Turkey’s refusal to revise its terrorism laws in return for visa-free travel for Turkish citizens traveling to Europe. The impasse has left the future for Syrians in Turkey even more uncertain.
Until now, Turkey has spent billions of dollars caring for Syrian refugees, providing them with free medical care and the right to an education. Yet more than 400,000 children are still unable to attend school because most of the Syrian families are living outside camps, mostly in poverty, and are struggling to secure work that pays enough to cover the basic necessities of food, clothing, rent and transportation, aid groups say.
Other factors preventing children from attending school include language barriers, confusion over enrollment procedures and transportation-related issues, said Selin Unal, a spokeswoman for the U.N. refugee program in Turkey.
The Turkish government introduced work permits for Syrians in January to help stop exploitation in the labor market so that parents could earn enough to send their children to school. But only 10,300 Syrians have gained the right to work under the new regulation, according to the Ministry of Labor, mainly because Turkish employers have been reluctant to grant contracts that would require them to pay minimum wage.
Turkish officials have acknowledged the pitfalls of the labor laws and have vowed to increase the number of workplace inspections to help enforce the new regulations, which are aimed at providing higher incomes and cracking down on child labor.
Ahmad’s mother said she had not heard about the work permits and had recently had to quit her job washing dishes at a restaurant after her boss beat her when she complained that her $90 weekly pay was a month late.
Most of Ahmad’s $60 weekly wages go toward the $270 rent for the narrow room where he lives with his mother and three siblings in Istanbul’s low-income Tarlabasi neighborhood.
Six days a week, Ahmad leaves home at 8 a.m. and walks to a nearby textile factory where he spends his days buttoning shirts as sewing machines rattle in the background. He is given a 30-minute break at lunchtime and two 15-minute tea breaks with biscuits that he buys with his 80-cent daily allowance from his mother.
“I enjoy working, and I don’t get treated badly,” Ahmad said, smiling at a Kurdish colleague helping him attach tags to a rail of shirts. “I’ve got to take care of my family, and this is the only way to do that.”
But in Syria, Ahmad’s dream was to become a singer. “I have a really good voice,” he said blushing. “I’m serious. I sing for my colleagues at work and they love it.”
Yet when asked what his ideal job would be, Ahmad dropped his smile for a second. “A savior,” he said. “I want to save everyone from poverty, because I’m poor and I don’t want anyone to go through what I’ve been through.”