ABSTRACT

This article aims to examine the labour market position of Syrians under the temporary protection in seasonal agricultural production in Turkey, with a focus on the interrelations between migration, child labour and precarisation. There is no doubt that the presence of 3.5 million Syrians increases the precarisation trends in the Turkish labour market. The involvement of children in precarious work is an essential component of migrant families’ survival strategies while it produces an abundantly low cost and easy to control labour supply for the commercial agricultural production in Turkey. The inclusion of children in agricultural production with harsh and difficult working conditions, results in the detachment of children from education to confine them to poor working and living conditions, and more importantly, generate a cycle of poverty. Significantly, the utilisation of Syrian child labour in Turkey speeds up the process of precarisation of labour and intensification of the state of the worst forms of child labour. In addition, the migration process and precarisation may mean an increased patriarchal control over labour in agricultural production, which is most commonly experienced by girls