ANKARA - Seasonal agricultural worker women who stated that “We live here with the fear of death” and who experience deep poverty, said: “The best place is the land where you were born.”

 

Seasonal agricultural workers, who mostly migrate from the region and come to the Central Anatolia Region, try to survive in difficult conditions and the impossibility of tent life in a rural area. When she narrates, what despair means can be read from her full eyes. Women living in tents are big enough to make the other side feel their longing for their own lands with mixed Turkish-Kurdish phrases pouring out of their longing for their land, as well as leaving their own lands, having to live in lands that have no belonging, as well as the hardship and pain of the circumstances. The perceived poverty of women, their faces and eyes covered with dust, their bare feet, and the poverty of children living in tents with torn tops, deeply affect people. Right next to us is Ankara, the capital city of Turkey, on which we leave the one-hour road behind us. According to the report of the Court of Accounts, the daily expenses of the palace are over 10,000,000. The situation of seasonal agricultural workers who live next door in misery is shocking.

 

Women and their children living in tents set up in Kesiköprü Neighborhood of Bala district of Ankara and Kulu district of Konya look at those who come to visit them with desperation and fear of hope.

To make a living, women from cities such as Antep, Urfa and Hatay come to cities in the Central Anatolia Region and living in tents close to the fields, working in the fields and taking care of their children for six months.

 

‘We live here in fear of death’

 

Ayşe Şayzoğan, who lives in a tent close to the field she works in Kulu, says that they came from Urfa due to economic difficulties. Ayşe, who has four children, continues: “Neither I nor my husband is literate. We cannot educate children either. Because we come here every year to work in the fields. At this rate, children will never be able to read and write. The children are covered by their neighbors. But they do not have shoes, look their feet are bare.”

“Actually, we live here with the fear of death,” she said and emphasizing that the reason for this is that they are more likely to get sick due to the unclean environment. Ayşe said: “I am afraid that the storm may come and throw the tent into the air at any moment and something will happen to my children. It happens that I do not sleep at night. I really have nothing, and I am desperate. We come from Urfa every year as seasonal workers. I am hungry for the reason I came from Urfa. I am already a tenant here and there. Last year I was able to work again. But since I gave birth this year, I cannot work, otherwise I go to work in the field every year.”

 

‘There is no water because there is no money’

 

Wanting everyone to see their situation, Ayşe summarizes what they experienced as follows: “We could not pull the electricity to the tent because there was no money, we are in the dark. There is no water either because there is no money. Look, everything is with money. Our strength is not enough. As a mother, I try to help my spouse, I take care of the children, and I am subjected to violence from this husband.”

 

‘I don’t want them to have a life like me’

 

Saying that besides the male violence she was subjected to, her demand was for her children to be fed, Ayşe said: “If they gave my husband a job, I would never come here. I want my kids to read, and I don't want them to have a life like me.”

 

‘We want our rights’

 

Emine Eroğlu, who came from Urfa's Suruç district to Ankara's Bala district as a seasonal agricultural worker, explains her experiences with the following statements: “We have been to Bala for a month, and we will stay for six months in total. Life is very troubled here. We have no water and electricity. We bring the water by tanker and we can only turn on the electricity for an hour in the evening. I am a mother of two children, we cannot take care of the children in these tent conditions and they are also crushed. When we come from the country, we have to bring the children. Since there is no tablet or internet since we arrived, children cannot receive education. We come to work, but we lose because the vegetables we planted are not sold. Last year, our onions remained in warehouses, and then they all broke down. Despite these difficulties, we cannot get the reward of our efforts. But we have to bear for bread money. We, as citizens, demand our rights from the authorities.”

 

‘Eid has come and gone, but we did not celebrate it’

 

Agricultural worker Mahiyet comes to Bala from Hatay's Dörtyol district and lives in tents. Pointing to the difficulty of life in the tent, Mahiyet states that diesel and gasoline are expensive, and they carry water from far away because they are not given water. Mahiyet said: “Life here is very difficult in every sense. For example, when we get sick, the closest to us is Şereflikoçhisar Hospital. However, the life of a person goes on until he gets there. We cannot reach anywhere from here, we cannot go to a city, a shop, or a market. The eid has come and gone, but we did not celebrate it. Is this an eid in the dust? I have 6 children, but under these conditions, I cannot care for children, educate them, make them eat and drink, or wash their clothes. Of course, it is difficult to do these here under these conditions. There is no water or electricity anyway. We bring the water from 30-40 kilometers by water tanker. This place is like a dry desert.”

 

‘Every day spend in foreign land is a death’

 

Saying that “the most beautiful place is the land where you were born”, Mahiyet finally said: “It is another feeling that a person is among his own people. Who does not want their land after making a living? We left our land, our homeland, we came. It is very difficult to live in foreign land. However, every day a person spends in foreign land is a death. When a person dies from our place, we never get to his/her funeral. When my 27-year-old brother died last year, I could not reach his funeral again. It will always remain a wound in me.”

 

The harsh conditions faced by agricultural worker women will be brought to parliament

On the other hand, the second part of the "No to Women Poverty" meetings within the scope of the "Justice for Women" campaign launched by the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) Women's Council on February 11 continue in the Central Anatolia Region. Women from HDP, who came together with seasonal agricultural workers in some districts of Konya and Ankara on May 20-21, announced yesterday that they will bring life in tents and working in harsh conditions to the parliament.