Helin Yıldırım/JINHA

ANTALYA – Kurdish women who have migrated to the Turkish city of Antalya in search of work say that they have had enough of the 12-hour days working in dangerous conditions of the greenhouses. They plan to return to Kurdistan and hope to find a way to continue their lives in their homeland.

In the Turkish province of Antalya, the year-round sunshine has encouraged an industry of greenhouses. Far from the crowded seaside, in Çakallık village, there is a community of Kurdish migrant laborers, the majority of them women. While the male workers' day ends when the whistle blows, the women workers live a different life. JINHA asked them about their experience.

Türkiye Akdağ, who has worked in the greenhouses for five years since she migrated from the Kurdish province of Diyarbakır, is a mother of eight. Before she answers our questions, she insists on explaining her name. She says that because the Turkish official could not (or would not) understand the name her Kurdish father gave her, the official simply recorded her name as Türkiye—"Turkey."

"Just like that population official wrote my name as 'Turkey,' here the bosses repress us for being Kurdish and for being women," she said. "That official, this boss—what's the difference."

Türkiye works in the greenhouses with two of her eight children every day. The workers cut crops by hand with no masks or protective clothing, and their housing is near an area where fields of flowers are sprayed. Every season, one person in her family takes out health insurance in case of emergencies, then cancels it when the season is over.

"After we work so many hours, then we look after the children and grandchildren," she said. "When male workers' day ends, they rest; we keep working."

Celile Yüksel, mother of 15, moved to Antalya from Diyarbakır three years ago after her husband passed away. She supported herself for a time through pastoralism, but the difficulty of surviving in Kurdistan as a single mother drove her to the flower industry in Antalya, with the hope of slowly building a better life for her children. She starts her day at 6 a.m. The workday only ends when the bosses say so.

"Since we came here, we've worked in the flowers," she said. "Just as you raise a child, raising flowers is like that. It's difficult and we make no profit; in fact, we don't even get the value of our labor." Celile says that this was not the "better life" she hoped for and she will be taking her family back to their native province of Diyarbakır, whatever the difficulties awaiting her there. "If you go hungry, you should at least do it in your own land," she said.

Zehra Yüksel, 17, dropped out of school three years ago to support her family by working in the greenhouses. She works long days under the sun, magnified by the stifling nylon greenhouse covers and her thick clothes, and says she can't make what her labor is worth. Now, it may be too late for her to return to school. Zehra may be trapped in the fields here.

"There are nights when we work until 3, 4 a.m. but however much we work, the work never makes us a profit," she said. "I feel like we're working for nothing." Zehra says she doubts she will be allowed to return to school now.

(fk/cm)