In a dim one-room apartment in one of Istanbul’s poorest neighborhoods, 11-year-old Atakan Sahin curls up on a threadbare sofa with his siblings to watch TV while their mother stirs a pot of pasta.
The simple meal is all the family of six can look forward to most evenings. Atakan, his two younger brothers and 5-year-old sister are among the one-third of Turkish children living in poverty.
“Look at the state of my children,” said Rukiye Sahin, 28. “I have four children. They don’t get to eat chicken, they don’t get to eat meat. I send them to school with torn shoes.”
Persistently high inflation, triggered by currency depreciation and unconventional economic policies that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan pursued but later abandoned, has left many families struggling to pay for food and housing.
Experts say it’s creating a lost generation of children who have been forced to grow up too quickly to help their families eke out an existence.
According to a 2023 joint report by UNICEF and the Turkish Statistical Institute, about 7 million of Turkey’s roughly 22.2 million children live in poverty.
Look at neighborhoods such as Istanbul’s Tarlabasi, where the Sahin family lives.
The Sahins eat sitting on the floor of their room — the same floor Rukiye and her husband sleep on while their children occupy the sofas. In the chilly early December night, a stove burns scraps of wood to keep them warm. They sometimes fall asleep to the sound of rats scuttling through the building.
Atakan spends his days helping his father scour trash bins in search of recyclable material to earn the family a meager income.
Poor children in Istanbul also earn money for their families by selling small items such as pens, tissues or bracelets at the bars and cafes in the city’s entertainment districts, often working late into the night.
“I can’t go to school because I have no money,” Atakan said. “We have nothing. Can you tell me how I can go? On sunny days, when I don’t go to school, I collect plastic and other things with my father. We sell whatever we find.”
The cash helps buy basic foodstuffs and pay for his siblings to attend school. On the days Atakan can attend, he is ill-equipped to succeed, lacking proper shoes, a coat and textbooks for the English class he loves.
The Sahins struggle to scrape together the money to cover the rent, utilities and other basic expenses as Turkey’s cost-of-living crisis continues to rage. Inflation stood at 47% in November, having peaked at 85% in late 2022. Prices of food and nonalcoholic drinks were 5.1% higher in November than in the previous month.
Under these circumstances, a generation of children is growing up rarely enjoying a full meal of fresh meat or vegetables.
Rukiye and her husband receive 6,000 lira ($173) per month in government welfare to help toward school costs, but they pay the same amount in rent for their home.
“My son says, ‘Mom, it’s raining, my shoes are soaking wet.’ But what can I do?” Rukiye said. “The state doesn’t help me. I’m in this room alone with my children. Who do I have except them?”
The picture of children rummaging through garbage to help support their families is far from the image Turkey presents to the world: that of an influential world power with a vibrant economy favorable to foreign investment.
Speaking at the G20 summit in November, Erdogan described Turkey’s social security system as “one of the most comprehensive and inclusive” in the world. “Our goal is to ensure that not a single poor person remains. We will continue our work until we achieve this,” he said.
Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek, tasked with implementing austerity and taming inflation, said the 17,000 lira ($488) monthly minimum wage isn’t low. But he has pledged to raise it as soon as possible.
Although the government allocates billions of lira to struggling households, inflation eats into any aid the state can give.
Experts say welfare payments aren’t enough for the millions who rely on them.
Volunteers are trying to ease the cycle of deprivation.
Mehmet Yeralan, 53, a former restaurant owner, brings essentials to Tarlabasi’s poor people, including coats, notebooks and the occasional bag of rice.
“Families are in very difficult situations,” he said. “They cannot buy food for their children and send them to school. Children are on the streets, selling tissues to support their families. We are seeing deep poverty here.”
Hacer Foggo, a poverty researcher and activist, said children are forced to drop out of school to work or are channeled into vocational programs where they work four days and study one day per week, receiving a small fraction of the minimum wage.
“Look at the situation of children,” she said. “Two million of them are in deep poverty. Child labor has become very common. Families choose these education-work programs because children bring in some income. It’s not a real education, just cheaper labor.”
UNICEF placed Turkey 38th out of 39 European Union or Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries in terms of child poverty between 2019 and 2021, with a child poverty rate of 34%.
It is a situation Rukiye fully understands.
“We can’t move forward, we always fall behind. … When you don’t have money in your hands, you always fall behind,” she said.
Her eldest son, meanwhile, clings to his childhood dreams.
“I want to go to school regularly.” Atakan said. “I want everything to be in order. … I’d like to be a football player one day, to support my family.”
