The Roads For Bread

This episode consists of some of the most startling scenes of “Turkey on the Move” in which 30 children from one father and three mothers, travel each year from Mardin to Akçakoca in the Black Sea to harvest hazelnuts. These Kurdish kids aged between 12 to 28, are literally growing up on the road, harvesting nuts, tomatoes, lettuce or cotton in various regions of Turkey. 

Another soul “on the road” in search for bread is Ayshe Osman Ali from Bulgaria. We meet her at an illegal employment agency specialising on private nurses for the older generation of the Istanbul middle class. Like Ayshe, tens of thousands of women from countries like Georgia, Armenia and Moldavia seek employment in Turkey. Due to their status as tourists, they have to cross the border once in three months in order to get a new visa. We pursued Ayshe who had renew her visa in Bulgaria. 

At present, the tragic work accidents in which over 80 people have died in the last 5 years in the shipyards of Tuzla nearby Istanbul are on the agenda in Turkey. Not well known is the fact, that most of these young men are inexperienced villagers who come there to seek work for three months and then go back to their hometowns. Another form of being on the road for bread.