Tag Archives: Gender

HarekAct Reporting, News Digest

HarekAct’s Weekly Digest 08/07/2019

2nd-8th of July

Governorship of Istanbul aim to limit Arabic Signs | Interior Minister Vows Increased Control over Syrians and Irregular Migrants | Spotlight on Anti-Syrian discourse in Istanbul and Turkey | Public Perception on Refugees based on Political Affiliation | Why does the Istanbul Convention Matter for Refugee Women and Girls?

Governorship of Istanbul aim to limit Arabic Signs:
Turkish authorities inspected 730 places of business with Arabic shop signs in Istanbul’s three districts between 15 June and 1 July. The governor’s office stated that the inspections will continue to include all of Istanbul’s 39 districts, and they’re aiming to ensure that signs have 75 percent of their content in Turkish and 25 percent in other languages within a short period of time ( see more in Turkish, in English) – 03.07.2019

Continue reading HarekAct’s Weekly Digest 08/07/2019 →
HarekAct Reporting, News Digest

HarekAct’s Weekly Digest 30/04/2019

25th – 30th April 2019

Harassment, sexual assault or violent threats towards LGBTI and women refugees across Turkey | Crossing to EU through Cyprus | Child abuse case sparks feelings of insecurity in multi-ethnic neighborhood | Syrian seasonal workers exploited between multinational companies and Turkish middlemen | On exile but with the spirit of “Arab spring” in Istanbul | Arbitrary procedure of detention on arrival to Lesvos

News&Reports

LGBTI refugees are calling on the UK Home Office to take immediate steps, as they continue to live in fear of homophobic violence in Turkey: Fifteen LGBT Syrian refugees are launching a legal challenge against the UK Home Office claiming they have been abandoned to a life of danger in Turkey, despite promises of being quickly brought to safety in the UK. Although they were accepted to a refugee resettlement scheme by the Home Office, they have been waiting for more than two years to be resettled, and are forced to live in hiding as a result. See more – 15.04.2019

Policeman’s Sentence for Sexually Assaulting an Uzbek Woman Reduced due to ‘Good Behavior’: For sexually assaulting a migrant woman from Uzbekistan in a police car in October 2018, the police officer Ş.Ş has been sentenced to 18 years, yet the sentence was reduced to 15 considering the “stance and behavior of the defendant in the hearings”. Four other officers were also under trial for the incident. The court acquitted one of them, and the other three have been sentenced to 7 months and 15 days in prison for “not reporting an offense” as public officers. See more – 26.04.2019

Continue reading HarekAct’s Weekly Digest 30/04/2019 →
HarekAct Reporting, News Digest

HarekAct’s Weekly Digest 21/03/2019

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EU-Turkey Deal, three years on | “The European Refoulement Industry at Sea” | Anti-Syrian election campaigning | Against Racial Discrimination | Eight years on from conflict in Syria | A special Issue of International Migration Journal: Syrian Refugees –Facing Challenges, Making Choices

News

EU-TURKEY DEAL: Three Years On

18 March 2019 marked three years since the controversial EU-Turkey ‘Deal’ was enacted. A number of NGOs have released statements to mark the anniversary in which they denounce the inhumane repercussions and immeasurable human cost of the deal. As a result of the deal, more than 20,000 people are being contained on Greek island ‘hotspots’, more than half of whom are women and children.

Continue reading HarekAct’s Weekly Digest 21/03/2019 →
News Digest

Police rape uzbek woman in istanbul, she was refused permission to denounce the case at station

According to public prosecutor of Istanbul’s indictment, on 15 October, a taxi carrying a 27 year-old Uzbek woman was stopped by police officers Ş.Ş and İ.K. Afterwards she was taken in the police car, detained for 3-4 hours in the car, raped by the officer Ş.Ş, her 1400 turkish liras were seized and she was finally dropped in the Yedikule area.

Afterwards when she went to the police station in Aksaray in order to denounce the case she was returned by the officer Y.S who said “He is already regretful like a dog, I’ll give him the necessary punishment. Now you go and take a shower, take a good rest, and forget about this, won’t worry”

Polis otosunda tecavüz
photo: DHA

The next day, a friend of the rape victim went to the police station and other police officers who were informed of the case brought the complaint to the public prosecution. On 17th of October, police officers Ş.Ş and İ.K were arrested, the other three officers who did not take legal actions on the complaint were released.

Read the full article in Turkish at Sputnik News

News Digest

The fragility of Syrian refugee women in Turkey

Burcu Karakaş reports on the everyday challanges for Syrian refugee women in Turkey: “Violence, exploitation, marginalisation: these are the challenges of a difficult everyday life for many Syrian refugee women in Turkey”


Refugees who took refuge in Turkey, escaping the war in Syria, October 2014 – kafeinkolik/Shutterstock

Rima, whose name has been changed for security reasons, is a young Syrian woman. Until five years ago, she was living in Syria with her family. One day, a bomb dropped on their house, killing her husband and three brothers. After this unexpected tragedy, Rima, mother of three, left her hometown for Turkey.

This article was originally published by OBC Transeuropa
HarekAct Reporting

Festus Okey: a long road to justice

Due to the reopening of the case of Festus Okey last week, Pelin Çakir summarizes and comments on the murder and its contexts for HarekAct

Photo: Reyan Tuvi

by Pelin Çakır

Festus Okey, was born in 1975, in the Abia state of Nigeria, one of eleven children born to a farming couple. His brother Tochukwu migrated to South Africa to support his family in their poverty, but told Festus that conditions were very bad there, leading Festus to come to Istanbul instead in 2005. He worked in temporary jobs and played football with amateur teams in the so-called African league of Istanbul, a league which gives hope to many African young men to be discovered by the agents of professional football teams and therefore become a reputed player. His friends were calling him Okute. By coincidence, he appeared in an independent documentary which reported on the league, firstly recorded while running in the field, then unexpectedly during his funeral (how his murder was initially acknowledged by the press).

It wasn’t easy to escape the police’s ‘attention’ as a black man in Istanbul. The first time he was arrested by police for being undocumented, and kept for several months in Kumkapı detention center until he managed to file an asylum application to the UNHCR. On the early evening of 20 August 2007, Festus Okey and his friend Mamina Oga were stopped by an undercover police officer in the central Beyoğlu area of Istanbul. The police officer later described how they were apprehended with the following words “black persons and citizens from the East draw more attention with respect to narcotics”. Continue reading Festus Okey: a long road to justice →

News Digest

Born in Turkey: Syrian children face uncertain future in new homeland

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.

Via MEE, Ayse Karabat

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.

This article was originally published by MEE.

News Digest

#WhereIsDerya? The Irani Women Protesting in front of UNHCR is Missing

We have previously posted about Derya, the Irani asylum-seeker who was protesting for more than a month in front of UNHCR on the claim that she has no life security in Turkey because of the life threats she has been receiving from her brother. Reports arrived a couple of days ago that non she has been missing.

A woman supporter who went to visit Derya in front of the UNHCR building could not find her and asked to the security guard, the guard responded that ‘someone took her’. The lawyers who support Derya could not find any information through UNHCR, DGMM or police stations. We are looking forward to find out where Derya is, we are urging the authorities to take an action to find her, particularly on this significant day, 25th of November, the international day for the elimination of the violence against woman.

See our post on social media for that matter.

 

News Digest

Through 30-days of struggle, Derya keeps asking for resettlement from UNHCR

photo: Woman Defence “telling her you are not alone and helpless, we turned our back to male violence and our face to Derya”

Derya, a woman asylum-seeker from Iran and a survivor of SGBV has been demonstrating in front of UNHCR Ankara office since one month now. UNHCR has already left the authority of refugee status determination totally to Directorate General of Migration Management on September. However, many refugees like Derya has filed their asylum applications earlier to UNHCR and expecting to receive attention and possibly a positive answer of resettlement to a third country from the international institution. Derya’s resistance has been brought to public attention in Turkey through some news covers and solidarity attempts of feminist groups. Here we put together Derya’s story through the humanitarian lawyers and her own account.

Accoding to Dicle Var from Evrensel News, Derya’s request for resettlement is neglected by UNHCR although she has fled from her family’s violence in Iran, and is claiming to not have life security in Turkey as well. As her sit-in protest in front of UNHCR has been brought to media, lawyers from Refugee Rights Center of Ankara Bar Association and International Women Solidarity Association (UKDD) took action for her. However the lawyers were let neither in the UNHCR building, nor to negotiate with the authorities, they were instead referred to Human Resource Development Foundtion (IKGV, a local implementing partner of UNHCR). The officers from IKGV confirmed that they are following Derya’s case, and added that she has psychological problems and she has to stay in Turkey and do the things that are necessary to adapt to normal life. The lawyer Çelik (from UKDD) condemned the attitude of the IKGV and pointed that such institutions do not have a women’s rights based approach towards women refugees, therefore she will keep on supporting Derya’s struggle and bring it to agenda in different platforms. Continue reading Through 30-days of struggle, Derya keeps asking for resettlement from UNHCR →

News Digest

Queer refugees on Lesvos are crying out for help

Via The New Arab – Freelance journalist Matt Broomfield describes the situation of LGBTIQ refugees on Lesvos Island. Hundreds of queer refugees who came to Europe to live a free life now face the same discrimination as they did in their home countries: by police, the asylum service and other migrants forced to live behind barbed wire.

The self-organized group Lesvos LGBTIQ+ Refugee Solidarity supports queer refugees in group meetings and in terms of accommodation and legal advice.

For their work, they collect donations through: borderline-europe e.V. GLS Bank, Bochum IBAN: DE11 4306 0967 4005 7941 00 BIC:GENODEM1GLS Purpose: LGBTIQ Lesvos

Via The New Arab – From the gay Iraqi who saw Isis militants throw his lover from the tallest building in Mosul to the couple who escaped persecution to rendezvous for the first time in a refugee camp, each of the LGBTQI+ refugees trapped on the Greek island of Lesvos could fill a book with their own personal stories.

Continue reading Queer refugees on Lesvos are crying out for help →