Small childish bodies, charged with the burden of survival. Eyes that are preternaturally
mature and serious, regarding you with fatigue, but also the confi dence
of a working person.
Child employment, which has been eliminated from the western world from the
start of the twentieth century, in undeveloped countries, but also throughout
the developing world, is a crutch for the economy, both on a state level and on a
strictly family level.
Street vendors – the luckiest of this bunch – young farmers, workers in industry
and the mines. One in ten children in Turkey and other neighbouring countries
works for a living. Of these, many assist their family without remuneration, while
the rest are paid to work outside the family business.
For most of these children, life is carved out on a hard and diffi cult path, without
education, without play, without moments that are carefree.
But despite these hardships, life fi nds a way to overcome such diffi culties and to
prove that such untimely work often strengthens the will and builds character, as
can be seen in the optimistic faces of these children.