Turkish companies flout law for cheap Syrian labor
Unemployment in Turkey has reached 11.3%, and Syrian refugees have become a convenient scapegoat.
Mohammed Zaghnoun, a refugee from Aleppo, arrived in Turkey two years ago and considers himself relatively fortunate. He earns 1,500 Turkish liras ($436) a month, 200 liras ($58) above the minimum wage, in a furniture factory in Ankara. Many of the 3 million Syrians in Turkey don’t even have a job.
But Zaghnoun works 12 hours a day, five and a half days a week — one-and-a-half times as long as the legal working week. The Turk working next to him, doing the same job, earns 47% more and receives health insurance. In short, Zaghnoun is horrendously exploited.
