International Labour organisation (ILO) has adopted the year 2021 as the “International Year for the Elimination of Child Labour”.

ILO defines the child labour as “works which prevent children from enjoying their childhood, redc/ce
their potential and respectability and are harm ful for their physical and mental development”.

Employing children as workers harms the children mentally, socially, physically and psychologically, dulls their potential which may be revealed through education and ultimately constitutes a hindrance for the development of our country. For this reason, ATEA has decided to initiate a holistic fighting campaign by conjoining our information and experience on child labour of which solution requires unity.

In this context,

• ATEA-member exporting companies are against all kinds of exploitation of children.
• Companies wholly comply with all the age limits and employment rules set forth in the Labour Code.
• Business partners and their partners who are eligible for employing child and young workers as per the relevant regulations and the fatter’s partners comply with any and all relevant laws and regulations in effect including the dangerous job description, wages, hours worked, overtime work and working conditions is an indispensable condition for companies.
• Business partners of such companies and the partners of the former are also expected to have and maintain similar standards.
• It has been adopted by the executives at the top most levels of such companies to comply with and to ensure the same to be complied with this declaration in all their operations.

Our expectations on fighting child labour from our main suppliers and producers who are among our most important stakeholders in fine with the operations of the company are gathered under the following main principles:

• Works classified as dangerous by the ILO and our country’s laws, in which individuals under 18 years of age are the following:
• Works involving the manual handling of dangerous machinery, equipment and tools
  as well as heavy toads.
• Works performed in an unhealthy environment, which may expose children to hazardous substances, to dangerous operations, to temperatures or to noise levels or vibrations which shall harm their health.
• Works performed under hard conditions such as working for (onger hours or night work.
• It is essential that children shouId attend school during the schooling term. However, those children, who have turned their 14 years of age and completed theirprimarye ducation may assist their families in light works in accordance with their age and physical and mental development in order to learn the family business within the scope of children’s assistance with family agriculture.

We, ATEA-member companies, declare and undertake to adopt the business principles securing the children’s rights, to free our supply chain from child labour and guarantee the abovementioned issues through internal and external inspections, to cooperate with both public and private organisations ancl NGOs so that we can achieve this goal of ours and to most property use ETIB and company resources in order to eliminate child labour provided that we take into consideration the sustainability principle and protect the child’s interest at the optimum level.