Child Labour in the Street Economy in Light of International and Turkish Labour Legislation

The presence of child labour in the world and Turkey is an undeniable social fact. There are various regulations regarding the protection of children both in international documents and in our national legislation. However, in the context of the street economy, some legal regulations, especially the occupational health and safety of children working on the street, remain incapable in terms of implementation. In this study, child labour regulations of various international organisations, including the International Labor Organization relating to child labour will be examined first, and then the existing regulations on child labour in Turkey in our working legislation will be analysed and explained. A number of actions that children working on the street who are street vendors tend to take, such as shining shoes, selling handkerchiefs, and begging, will be discussed in detail and the legal dimension will be examined. In addition, some legal changes will be addressed, such as the lack of a uniform regulation on the minimum working age and the confusion of child labour and child labour concepts. Finally, in the pandemic process that affects the whole world, the measures that are thought to be useful in terms of protecting children working on the street from the COVID-19 epidemic will be tried to be explained in the context of occupational health and safety law.

The Employer's Obligation of Health Oversight During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The importance of employers' obligation to protect the occupational health and safety of their employees has increased during the COVID-19 pandemic that has affected our country, as well as the entire world, and has led to numerous deaths. The "health surveillance" obligation, regulated by Article 15 of the Occupational Health and Safety Law (No 6331), states that it is the obligation of the employer to diligently protect employees and their workplace, especially against any outbreak. The health surveillance obligation depends on the kind of work performed at the workplace and is governed by many regulations. In this study, the duty, authority, and responsibility of workplace doctors that are regulated by the law are analyzed, and the legal procedure that workplace doctors and employers can apply to protect the health and safety of the employees during the COVID-19 pandemic are investigated. Moreover, the legal procedures that employers can apply if an employee avoids health checks during a pandemic and those that the employees can pursue in case of clear and imminent danger that they could be exposed to because of the noncompliance with the rules and regulations on the part of the employers are explained from a legal perspective.