Hello everyone and virtual hugs from the first Monday of the sad season, when the intense heat is coming to an end and the leaves on the trees are changing colour!
First of all, I should mention that this post was prepared for the "a picture is worth a thousand words" event organised by 
I recommend you to join the fun and competition, and when you create your own story or ideas; I would like you to know that I will be pleased to read it.
A Picture is Worth A Thousand Words
@oneray if you want to join, you can check the link above!
Describe what you see
A picture is worth a thousand words is one of the most prominent queries of the competition. Until today, I have participated in the competition with my own ideas or fictional stories I have created, but this time I want to participate with my own family reality.
The answer to what I see when I look at the picture will be short, but I will try to be as descriptive (with my feelings) as I can about the reason.
''I see my mum''
Born in 1954, my mother, who has been an agricultural worker since the age of 8, has always been self-sacrificing and self-sacrificing, creating the basic dynamite that keeps her household afloat both economically and logistically.
Since the concept of "child labour" had not yet been established at that time, her rights arising from being a child were neither legally nor morally protected. Of course, we know these things from what he told us and from the accounts of those who witnessed his past life.
At the age of 14, she was married to my father and this time the discourse of a married child was added to the discourse of a child worker. As a result of being a family, her responsibilities increased even more, and her work in agriculture increased even more in order to sustain her family economically. She gave birth to five children, a girl, a girl, a boy, a girl and a boy, respectively, and was deprived of all the rights of being a working mother that exist today. The reason; the period difference!
Starting from my childhood until the time when we made her leave working life, her hands were more calloused and serrated than a lady's hands. Whenever I touched her hands, I could feel the roughness and roughness of her hands.
Olive trees and cotton fields are some of the main sources of livelihood in our neighbourhood. Especially when you are unskilled and educationally illiterate like "my mum", you have few job options. The agricultural sector is the most important of these, and although the situation is reversed thanks to the developing technology and the insistence of new generations on education and the rights protected by changing laws, it does not bring back her (my mother's) lost rights.
Picking olives, picking citrus fruits, throwing pesticides, picking peaches, hoeing cotton and corn, cleaning weeds that grow between them, picking cotton when it blooms, irrigation work in citrus groves, pruning trees, these are some of the jobs she did.
As a necessity of being a family and not making the family dependent on anyone, my father also did all these and similar jobs. But they did it with some differences, and I hope you will understand why I see "my mother" in the picture when I tell you about the differences.
When they came home from work, my father would light a cigarette and rest. My mother, on the other hand, would have completed her work in agriculture and started her home shift. Cooking was one of the most prominent tasks of the home shift, and of course there were 5 of us siblings. Since we are still children, we do more harm than good. Washing the dishes and the laundry were the next parts of the shift, and taking care of our requests in the meantime were the bonus parts of the home shift. She was paid her daily wage for the field work, but the housework was free.
As 5 siblings, we did not become child labourers like our mother and father! It is thanks to them and thanks to them that we have completed our education. At the point we have reached today, my mother has the biggest share, but my father has also contributed. My parents worked as real labourers in agriculture almost all their lives. They were paid for their labour with their daily wages. I always define people who work with the soil as real labourers, whether they get the value they deserve or not is a separate issue. So I will not go into this subject, but there is one last thing I would like to say!
My father worked with my mother at the same times, in the same places, doing the same jobs. Today, my father is retired, while my mother, despite spending her whole life in the field of agriculture, has not paid a single day's insurance premium and is not retired because she is not seen as an employee! She does not have the chance to retire either! Whether you explain this with gender discrimination, the irresponsibility of the employees, the greed of the employer or any other reason, it does not make sense as long as the result does not change. For me, it will remain as the irresponsibility of the legislators in the past! After all, the years mentioned are the periods belonging to 1960 and after!
Today's laws protect the rights of agricultural workers and seasonal workers. There may still be right-grabbers, but workers, no matter how unskilled, are now aware of their rights. Although these are pleasing developments, they do not cover up the injustices of the past. Because I know that there are still people like my mother who are agricultural workers but are deprived of their rights because their insurance premiums are not paid in official places.
According to us and her environment, my mother is a real agricultural worker and has spent years in this field, but since her insurance premiums are not paid and she has no insurance premium days, she is just a housewife!
I am the youngest in the family, my other sisters and my brother and I did not allow my mother to work after we took the stage in business life! She is really a housewife now!
Although she is still not sufficiently equipped in terms of education, she is aware of the issues such as compensation for those who cheat her and the damages arising from not being able to prove that she worked despite working in the fields where she spent her life, and not getting the pension she deserves! She is experiencing the disadvantage of living in the wrong era, but this does not mean that justice will not be realised!
He leaves all his rights to "that day" when divine justice will manifest! As a believer, when that day comes, she will get her rights to the fullest!
Whenever I see a woman working in the fields, I remember my mother and what she suffered. My mother does not regret anything she did in her past! Including starting to work in the fields when she was 8 years old and marrying my father when she was 14! Her only regret is not being able to retire even though she deserved it!
@cute-cactus