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.