ILO response to the earthquakes in Türkiye and Syria

Described as “one of the biggest natural disasters of our times” the multiple earthquakes which struck Türkiye and northern Syria on 6 February 2023 have resulted in the death and injury of tens of thousands of people, and have caused extensive damage to buildings and infrastructure across both countries.

Disasters such as the earthquake have severe implications on the world of work. Jobs and livelihoods are destroyed, businesses interrupted and workplaces damaged. This can also lead to an exacerbation of other decent work deficits. In addition, debris and rubble removal works without proper safety measures also subject workers to a number of Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) risk factors, such as exposure to hazardous objects, unsafe working conditions and work-related accidents.

In such a humanitarian context that requires a viable solution, one of the suitable instruments that the ILO can apply is the employment intensive approach. The approach aims to combine efforts to rehabilitate destroyed infrastructures with an immediate decent job creation scheme, and a longer-term objective of skills development and employability enhancement as well as improvement of working conditions. As such, the ILO interventions in the aftermath of the earthquake aim to ensure human security from an early recovery angle.

Latest

  1. © ILO 2024

    My work with earthquake survivors in Türkiye gives me purpose

    06 February 2024

    When multiple earthquakes struck Türkiye and Syria on 6 February 2023, Jin Dawod set to work matching survivors with therapists through her platform Peace Therapist. A Syrian refugee living in Türkiye, she knows first-hand how critical psycho-social support is to help people recover from trauma.

  2. After the earthquake: ILO projects contribute to recovery in Syria

    06 February 2024

    The International Labour Organization (ILO) is helping communities in the city of Aleppo to rebuild after the earthquake in 2023.

  3. Japan to support employment-intensive recovery in the earthquake-hit areas in Aleppo, Syria

    01 February 2024