Selcan Hacaoglu takes on the rising anti-migrant sentiments against Syrians at the border towns of Turkey for Bloomberg Businessweek . The text involves some stigmatizing language, on which a critical reflection remains missing. Still we are posting here, since it also gives a glimpse of Syrians’ incorporation into different sectors of labour market.
A camp for displaced people in Kafr Lusin near the Bab al-Hawa border crossing with Turkey on April 1, 2018. Photographer: Ibrahim Yasouf/AFP via Getty Images
By Selcan Hacaoglu
As warplanes bombed his Syrian hometown of Aleppo, factory-owner Amer Hadri stepped on the gas pedal of his silver BMW 5 series and made for the safety of Turkey.
Migrant kids born in Turkey is a crucial and growing topic. 385,431 babies born to Syrian parents in Turkey between April 2011 and November 2018, according to official statistics. As mentioned in the report below many problems and risks emerge in this area: such as the the discriminative treatment migrant mothers face that may turn violent and traumatic during the labour, not having access to public hospitals (being refused, or being charged high prices) and therefore having to give birth in improper conditions, having difficulties to register the kids, and to receive health-care, education and other social services later on.
Almost half of the 3.5 million Syrians in Turkey are children, according to UNICEF (AFP)
ISTANBUL, Turkey – Sham’s start in life was not easy.
“I was in labour. I was in pain, lying in the hospital bed, but the midwives did not help me,” recalls her mother Kawthar Muhammet, a Syrian now living in Turkey who uses the Turkish spelling of her last name, Mohammed. “They said to me, ‘You’re fleeing war and having sex?’ They called me names that I don’t want to repeat. They abandoned me.
Even though Lebanon recently announced a slowdown in the number of Syrians returning from Lebanon, following the death of several returning Syrians, the Turkish state run Anadolu agency reports about thousands of Syrians crossing the border back to Syria.
Thousands of Syrian refugees return home from Turkey
Via Ahval –Thousands of Syrians have left Turkey over the past fortnight to return to their hometowns liberated from militants in northwestern Syria, Hürriyet Daily News reported.
Via taz gazete – An article reporting on the situation of Syrians in Izmir and growing racist tensions and attacks. Available in Turkish and German.
Foto: Sevda Aydın. Suriye’deki iç savaşın hemen başlarında en çok göç alan bölgelerden biri Basmane’ydi.
„Ceplerinde dolarlar var ama bedava çorba içiyorlar“
Büyük İskender, gördüğü bir rüyanın ardından insanların eskisinden dört kat mutlu yaşayacağını düşünerek Kadifekale’ye bir kent kurmaya karar verir. Kadifekale’de şimdilerde eskisinden dört kat daha mutsuz mülteciler yaşıyor.
„Wir haben Angst“
In İzmir leben 140.000 Syrer*innen. Viele Einheimische sehen sie als Gäste, die irgendwann wieder zurückkehren sollen – manche greifen die Geflüchteten an.
This articles were originally published by taz gazette.
Via Turkish Minute – Turkey has closed down six camps for Syrian refugees due to austerity measures the government has taken amidst economic problems, the Cumhuriyet daily reported on Thursday.
As part of the EU-Turkey-Deal the EU offered a payment of 3 billion Euros until 2018. The way the budget is used has always been criticized, particularly because of the lack of transparency and efficiency in distributing the aids in a fair manner for those in need, both by the refugees and the actors in the field. Now in its final report even the EU’s ECA criticizes the distribution of the budget, stating that a large amount of it has been wasted due to a lack of efficiency and effectiveness. Furthermore it clarifies that for a big amount of the EU-money it is unknown what it actually was spent on.
Once more it becomes clear that while in the context of the EU-Turkey-Deal the sealing of the European border to Turkey is effectively enforced, the promised support for the refugees in Turkey does often not reach them.
EU unable to fully trace €1bn spent on refugees in Turkey
Via euobserver – The EU is unable to verify with certainty how over €1bn of European taxpayer money was spent on Syrian refugees in Turkey because of Ankara’s data protection laws.
This article was originally published by euobserver.
Striking Audit Results by the EU’s ECA
Via AIMS Turkey – The EU’s European Court of Auditors (ECA) released their final report on the Facility for Refugees in Turkey yesterday. A short summary of the 63-page report, which contains quite astounding observations regarding the implementation of the EU-funded projects toward refugees in Turkey has been compiled by Y. Emre Küçükkaya and published by AIMS Turkey.
Birgün introduces striking data on the migrant labour in Turkey as indicated by the report prepared by the Republican People’s Party (CHP) titled “Migrant Labour in our Country”.
Via Birgün – According to the “Migrant Labour in Our Country” report prepared by CHP (Republican People’s party) Labour Bureau, the majority of migrants, with Syrians making up the largest number, are working irregularly, under heavy exploitative conditions, and dozens of them have lost their lives in workplace homicides.
This article was originally published in Turkish by Birgün.
The Turkish police in the state of Adana launched a security campaign in cooperation with the Foreigners’ Bureau with the aim of searching for Syrians’ Turkish identity documents, in particular the Turkish temporary protection ID, the “kimlik.”
Turkey is home to more displaced Syrians than any other country, but growing intercommunal violence between refugees and their hosts is straining relations.
