Turkish Host Communities and Syrians under Temporary Protection

Historically, Turkish immigration policies have favoured people of Turkish descent and culture, associated with past Ottoman rule (İçduygu Reference İçduygu2015). Early in the refugee response, Turkish authorities assumed that the crisis in Syria would end quickly; thus, the possibility of long-term stay of Syrians in Turkey was ignored. As time passed, unsurprisingly, hosting a big number refugees started to put enormous social and financial strain on national and local economies and communities. However, it must be noted that the perceptions of host communities about Syrian refugees took shape in relation to the social, economic and political circumstances of the country. As the country’s economy deteriorates, many communities in Turkey have expressed concern over refugees, citing that they are an economic burden, negatively impact the labour market, receive social services benefits to which they do not contribute (health care, social assistance, etc.) (Byman and Speakman Reference Byman and Speakman2016). In parallel to the armed conflicts of the country with the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and radical Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in northern Syria, the Syrians were perceived as a security risk, increasing the potential of crime and terrorist incidents (International Crisis Group 2016).

As well as these problems, in the milieu of socio-cultural juxtaposition, ethnic, religious or language similarities of refugees with host societies also resulted in politicization of the Syrians and resulted in them being perceived as a threat by some groups. To give two examples, Turkish society is polarized between conservative Islamists and secular-Kemalists (Tombuş and Aygenç Reference Tombuş and Aygenç2017) and there are steadily increasing anti-refugee/Syrian sentiments particularly among the latter group as they perceive Syrian refugees as having a natural allegiance to the former group owing to their religious and sectarian – Sunni Muslim – similarities (Erdoğan Reference Erdoğan2014), or they may be used as a political tool in the future (Mackreath and Sağniç Reference Mackreath and Sağnıç2017). A recent poll shows that anti-Syrian sentiments are much more common among Republican People’s Party (CHP) voters (KONDA 2019). Further, Turkey has taken an authoritative turn and was for a long time under a state of emergency after a failed coup attempt in July 2016 (OSCE PA 2017). This granted almost unilateral power to the government and impacted the country’s responses to refugees within its borders. It also reinforced the polarization by making the government the only responsible unit for incoming of Syrian refugees in the eyes of some sections of the population, and strengthened the perception further about the natural allegiance between the government and Syrian refugees.

Relatedly, there is an assumption in Europe that Turkey is a ‘natural environment’ for Syrians because most Syrian refugees in Turkey are Sunni Arabs (Lazarev and Sharma Reference Lazarev and Sharma2015) and there is a shared cultural intimacy between the two countries stemming from prior Ottoman rule (Kaya Reference Kaya2016). However, this assumption disregards the complexity of society in Turkey, and amongst Syrians for that matter. Many groups in Turkey, such as Alevis, fear that Syrian refugees are being instrumentalized to tip political power further in favour of a Sunni majority and that Syria’s sectarian conflict could spill into Turkey (International Crisis Group 2016). These concerns can hinder integration, negatively affect refugee–host community relations and further polarize Turkey’s national political scene.

Some of the effects of the entrance of Syrians in Turkey include increases in rent costs, food costs, and general inflation, particularly at border cities, decreases in wages, illegal hiring by small businesses and possible displacement of Turkish citizens in the informal labour market (Akgündüz et al. Reference Akgündüz, Van den Berg and Hassink2015). However, in some areas, the presence of refugees has improved the trade balance and is expected to bring economic growth as economic integration with Middle East and North Africa deepens (Azevedo et al. Reference Azevedo, Yang and Inan2016). Moreover, locals have benefited as employers of, and sellers to, Syrians. Further, reports on the impacts of Syrian refugees on host community welfare in Turkey found that, nationally, the host community has not been negatively impacted, and there has not been discernible labour market effects in the formal economy (Akgündüz et al. Reference Akgündüz, Van den Berg and Hassink2015). Having said this, there is evidence that provincial unemployment rates are more likely to increase in areas with larger Syrian refugee populations, and Turkish citizens in the informal sector are being displaced (İçduygu and Diker Reference İçduygu and Diker2017). As Syrian refugees are mostly urban refugees in Turkey, this discussion on Turkish host communities steers the analysis towards the interactions between host communities and refugees in urban areas in Turkey.

Urban Refugees; Closer Interactions with Host Society and More Exploitation

The study of urban refugees has only relatively recently captured the attention of researchers and policymakers. Until the end of the Cold War, many refugee movements were concentrated in the Global South and they tended to settle in close geographies due to sociocultural familiarity, political activism and quick repatriation. In such a context, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) could deal with refugee flows by establishing security zones and refugee camps close to the conflict areas. However, the recent flow of refugees has gone beyond the scale of forced migration that the UNHCR can deal with because it is the result of violent reconfigurations of global power relations and significantly undermined UNHCR’s capacity for holding refugees in the camps and settling them (Fitzgerald and Arar Reference Fitzgerald and Arar2018). To exemplify, of more than 20 million refugees, the UNHCR had only been able to settle some 75,000 in 2016 (Yıldız and Uzgören Reference Yıldız and Uzgören2016).

Refugee camps are an emergency response. If they become permanent, then, they are a tool of containment of refugees that prevents their integration into host communities and restricts their agency in achieving self-sufficiency (Darling Reference Darling2016). Over 90% of Syrian refugees in Turkey are living outside of camps in rural, semi-urban and urban areas. Urban refugees can interact more with the host society compared with those in the camps. However, they are exposed to many risks, including poor housing conditions, lack of status and rights, uncertainty over where to access support, challenges in accessing health services, mobility restrictions, and exploitations (Woods Reference Woods2016).

While refugees may be eligible for state–NGO partnered cash-based interventions outside camps, the conditions in urban areas are often characterized by weak social protection. Urban refugees may access the opportunity for the provision of protection services in parallel to or embedded within national services for citizens of Turkey. However, there are problems in practice and there is no national strategy outlining how municipalities should respond to urban refugees at the local level to enable their access to these services (Erdoğan Reference Erdoğan2017). In other words, the capacity and efforts of municipalities to implement macro-level policies at local levels for Syrians varies, but is mostly limited and inconsistent (Mackreath and Sağniç Reference Mackreath and Sağnıç2017).

Positively, the Turkish state is making efforts to engage local municipalities in taking responsibility to integrate migrants and refugees in communities (Kaya Reference Kaya2016). This is a welcome move but requires financial support from the state to local districts. We should add that some localities do not explicitly support urban refugees due to a fear of attracting increased numbers to the area (Erdoğan Reference Erdoğan2017). In addition, a lack of consistent and up-to-date figures of urban refugees negatively influences municipalities’ ability to advocate for increased national support, particularly in efforts in identifying those at increased risk, such as women, children, and traumatized populations.

Syrian Women in Turkey; Struggles and Resistance

Gender-sensitive and intersectional approaches to refugee protection need to be undertaken to understand and mitigate harm to all refugees, including women, girls, boys and men. While refugees are exposed to exploitative circumstances, women and LGBTQ groups in the refuge community are more at risk during all stages of a refugee crises: fleeing, in transit and in the new host community (Rohwerder Reference Rohwerder2016). It has been documented that sexual and gender-based violence in Syria predated the Syrian civil war and is now one of the most salient features of the war (Parker Reference Parker2015). This violence extends to both males and females. Furthermore, women and girl Syrian refugees are being forced or feeling the need to engage in transactional sex to survive (Spencer Reference Spencer2015).

Moreover, there are reports of Syrian girls and women being forced into child marriage or adult marriage for short and long terms (Woods Reference Woods2016). Added to this, girls who are married are less likely to continue their education (Spencer Reference Spencer2015). This violates their rights as children and limits their potential. Some Turkish men are marrying Syrians monogamously (Mackreath and Sağniç Reference Mackreath and Sağnıç2017). Some others are taking Syrians as second wives (Kaya Reference Kaya2016; Woods Reference Woods2016). In their study with a group of Syrian adolescents and young people in Izmir, Turkey, Wringe et al. (Reference Wringe, Yankah, Parks, Mohamed, Saleh and Speed2019) found that being alone outside the home for girls was viewed as risky due to pervasive sexual, verbal and physical harassment, aggression, and even kidnapping attempts. Therefore, Syrian girls were often encouraged by parents to marry to protect them from risks of violence associated with working. Interestingly, Duman (Reference Duman, Carlson and Williams2020) points out the negative perceptions and reactions from the host society towards Syrian refugee women who are married to Turkish men. While Syrian women are mostly victims of informal marriages and cheated and lied to, they are stereotyped and accused by the host society as home wreckers.

Açıkalın et al. (Reference Açıkalın, Erçetin, Potas, Çevik, Neyişçi and Görgülü2020) studied integration of Syrian refuge women in Ankara and reported that educational participation and vocational courses positively increase the social integration of the women, but the women mostly rate as low their social inclusion in society, which is largely effected by language and cultural differences. The researchers also note that marital status greatly affects the social-integration levels of Syrian refugee women. Married Syrian refugee women have higher integration levels in the law and security sub-dimensions and this is explained by feeling safe with a partner.

In their research on links between gender, migrant status and language, Rottmann and Nimer (Reference Rottmann and Nimer2020) show that gender strongly structures women’s access to linguistic resources and interactional opportunities as they use language under social pressure to conform to prescribed roles as mothers, wives and virtuous, and shy, women. Yet the authors also note that these roles are not static and reconstituted in the process of language learning and gaining symbolic capital in the Turkish host society. In a similar vein, the studies report that, in Turkey, Syrian women are entering the labour market, taking steps to generate an income to support their families, and are becoming heads of households in greater numbers than ever before (CARE 2016). However, this may occasionally cause some uneasiness in the traditional family values, and it challenges gender norms and roles. Öztürk et al. (Reference Öztürk, Serin and Altinöz2019) confirm earlier studies on participation of Syrian women into the labour market by the finding that, compared with their home countries, Syrian women are more active in Turkey, but a majority are involved in precarious and seasonal jobs. These jobs often leave little opportunity for possible career development.

Children and Education: Accession Issues, Monocultural Education and Exclusion

Education for Syrian children is crucial for their psychosocial development and recovery, along with their increasing potential for social mobility and social and structural integration. Among other public institutions, the educational system of the host societies is critical for proper integration of the immigrants and refugees. Half of the Syrian refugees in Turkey are under 19 years of age and approximately one million are school-age children (Çelik and Erdogan Reference Çelik and Erdogan2017). The enrolment of Syrians in public schools has been improving (UNHCR 2017b), but remains low (International Crisis Group 2016; İçduygu and Diker Reference İçduygu and Diker2017). In 2018, 565,907 Syrian children were enrolled in formal education and around 430,000 children were out of school (UNICEF Turkey 2018).

The Ministry of Education is responsible for arranging the access of Syrian children to education. It regulates the activities of refugee students at primary and secondary schools. Accordingly, the Syrian children and youth mainly continue their education in Turkey either through Temporary Education Centres (TECs) or Turkish public schools – the number of the former has significantly decreased recently. The Ministry of Education arranges regulations regarding recognition of previous certificates and integration of TEC certificates to Turkish public schools and accredits the certificates given by both institutions. Students and their parents need to receive temporary protection IDs to enrol into public schools. The students wishing to attend Turkish public schools are placed in the schools closest to their place of residence (Çelik and İçduygu Reference Çelik and İçduygu2019). Syrian students are placed into different grade levels in public schools by either proving their previous educational trajectory with necessary documents or by taking placement tests. The placement is arranged by district directorates of national education and may include written and oral tests (Çelik and Erdoğan Reference Erdoğan2017). If the students require an equivalency certificate for university registration, they can take the Foreign Students High School Equivalence Exam (YÖLDS), which is organized once a year in certain cities (Aras and Yasun Reference Aras and Yasun2016).

While education is available to all as a right, including foreigners, several hardships have been systemically observed and reported about, including the implementation of this policy in practice. İcduygu and Simsek (Reference İçduygu and Millet2016) specifically point out practical limitations such as language barriers and lack of space in the classrooms. In addition to language barriers, Berti (Reference Berti2015) mentions the lack of appropriate documents, high education costs, school distance and safety issues as major factors preventing Syrian children from participating in education. Çelik and İçduygu (Reference Çelik and İçduygu2019) studied the practices, organization and regulations of two major schooling options for Syrian refugee children, TECs and public schools, and how they shape the children’s experiences in terms of integration. They concluded that TECs work like a Syrian enclave in a foreign land, with their ethnically homogeneous student and teacher bodies, monolingual and monoculture education and curriculum. Public schools, with their monoculture, monolingual organizational practices work to exclude Syrian students, prevent Syrian parents from monitoring their children, and frequently make students feel depressed and alienated. Further, children who enter the school system may require specific interventions as they may have experienced or witnessed trauma and may need academic catch-up support. Akar and Erdoğdu (Reference Akar and Erdoğdu2019), for example, add to the list of factors that keep Syrian students out of school, the trauma of displacement and not attending school for years. In many cases, parents keep their children out of school for their children to earn a wage to help support the families’ survival costs. Yalçın (Reference Yalçın2016) posits that this is because of a lack of adequate social protection mechanisms in Turkey, and that child labour harms children’s mental, social, physical, psychological wellbeing and denies the rights of the child.

Several initiatives have been put into place to both prevent the use of child labour as a negative coping mechanism and combat the creation of a lost generation: United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) launched a Conditional Cash Transfer for Education in 2017, and the World Food Programme, Turkish Red Crescent and the Government of Turkey have implemented a Kızılay Kart Emergency Social Safety Net, an unrestricted cash-based programme in late 2016. It is important to note, however, that both programmes are temporary measures and dependent on external funding. Thus, they are not sustainable responses or durable solutions.

CSOs: Providing Humanitarian Assistance while having Tense Relations with the State

CSOs are service providers that work with policymaking states in the Global North, whereas they undertake more dominant roles in the Global South where state capacity is lower (Nimer Reference Nimer2020). CSOs are increasingly becoming powerful organizations in Turkey, since the 1980s, but their relations with the Turkish state are increasingly tense and controversial.

CSOs emerged as powerful actors especially with the Marmara earthquake in 1999. This incident revealed the incapacity of the institutional actors and state for supplying aid, and strengthened the CSOs’ vibrant humanitarian activities. This phase signalled a new term in state and civil society relations. However, CSOs have been faced with strict control by the state after the Gezi Park protests in 2013, and around 1500 of them were closed following the 15 July events in 2016 (Youngs and Küçükkeleş Reference Youngs and Küçükkeleş2017). The arrival of refugees to the country increased national and international humanitarian assistance and constituted grounds for reactivation of CSOs in the field. However, as Nimer (Reference Nimer2020) rightly captures, the Turkish state, with the fear of weakening sovereignty and oppositional movements, is wary of the risks of strong CSOs in the Global South. She further argues that the Turkish state develops an intermediary position between the Global North and South typologies; it acts to control CSOs on the one hand and allows them to provide funding and expertise through limited mechanisms on the other hand.

Situated in such a tense context, CSOs have been the core responder to Syrians under temporary protection. However, they are also highly fragmented and complex and lack the capacity to meet the needs of its target audience (Şimşek and Çorabatır Reference Şimşek and Çorabatır2016). The fragmented structure characterized by the ambiguous and complex web of state and CSOs’ support avenues is confusing and hard to navigate for refugees in need of assistance and those unable to navigate the system are more at risk (Biehl Reference Biehl2015). CSOs offer services ranging from advocacy, psychological and social support, education, community centres, food, clothing and essential item distribution and much more; they also vary in funding sources from locally supported to internationally supported larger organizations such as UNHCR. One can see, among other things, this robust but mostly uncoordinated CSOs’ response to the refugee question in Turkey by the state and civil society relations introduced earlier (Mackreath and Sağniç Reference Mackreath and Sağnıç2017).

CSOs working with Syrians under temporary protection generally lean more towards deeming refugees as recipients versus actors. The Islamic values of ansar and muhajir constitute the ethos of many CSOs that are faith-based (Mackreath and Sağniç Reference Mackreath and Sağnıç2017). However, this benefactor–beneficiary relationship is problematic because it may create a cycle of dependence and has an inherent power dynamic where Syrians are victims who are recipients of charity and hospitality, they are not awarded rights or agency (Mackreath and Sağniç Reference Mackreath and Sağnıç2017). Additionally, there is competition for financial resources among CSOs and this contributes to the marketization of the sector, in which certain organizations have preferential treatment. Sunata and Tosun (Reference Sunata and S2019), for example, revealed that religious references and proximity to the governing party’s ideology in the structure of CSOs and their projects and activities increase the chances for preferential treatment. We should also add that some of the international organizations that have been granted permission for working in the country have been accused of ‘poaching’ qualified workers from local organizations (Cupolo Reference Cupolo2017). The large-scale ‘crackdown’ on CSOs in Turkey indeed presents a precarious work environment for both CSOs’ employees and the Syrians who access the services.

Work Realities; Insecure and Exploitative Working Conditions

Many Syrians under temporary protection, adults and children, seek work in the informal sector, which accounts for approximately 35% of the Turkish workforce, often under exploitative circumstances (Ceritoglu et al. Reference Ceritoglu, Yuncular, Torun and Tumen2017). It is estimated that most professionals left Turkey by 2015, arguably due to delays in work permit regulation (İçduygu and Diker Reference İçduygu and Diker2017). Skilled and unskilled workers are competing for jobs and the Syrians, desperate to earn cash to survive, often work for lower wages than Turkish citizens, which negatively impacts host community relations and has detrimental effects on refugee protection (Erdoğan et al. Reference Erdoğan2017). Syrians’ participation into the labour market is often characterized by poor work conditions, misconduct and abuse by employers, tensions in communities (International Crisis Group 2016). Moreover, as previously mentioned, precarious economic circumstances drive families to depend on their children to work, as a negative coping mechanism (İçduygu and Diker Reference İçduygu and Diker2017).

In January 2016, the Turkish labour ministry officially acknowledged the importance of integrating Syrians into the workforce and launched a Regulation on Work Permits of Foreigners under temporary protection to help ease Syrians’ legal access to the labour market (ÇSGB 2016). This shift in Turkey’s approach to the Syrians can be interpreted as a transition from a humanitarian aid to livelihoods support position. However, challenges in access and bureaucratic complexities infringe on the Regulations’ effectiveness – only 1% of working-age Syrians in Turkey have been granted a work permit since 2011 (İçduygu and Diker Reference İçduygu and Diker2017).

There are various administrative hurdles associated with obtaining a work permit, along with mobility restrictions (International Crisis Group 2016). Further, due to salary and social security contributions, the costs of hiring a Syrian formally are higher than employing him or her informally. If employers pay the same for Syrians to work, Syrians may lose their ‘competitive advantage’ over Turkish citizens. Moreover, Syrians working in insecure conditions may lose their jobs if they attempt to demand formalization of their informal positions (Canefe Reference Canefe2016), thus risking losing their only source of income.

Large-scale improvements are required for the actual transition of Syrians from working in the informal to the formal sector. A simplified system of granting work permits for Syrians under temporary protection would mutually benefit refugees and Turkish communities. There are several ways to improve the access to formal work response; the current data on the occupational capabilities of Syrians under temporary protection and needs of the Turkish labour market, paired with language and vocational training, should be recorded and systematized (Betts and Collier Reference Betts and Collier2015). In addition, funding opportunities for civil society organizations can be increased, and financial incentives for Turkish employers to hire Syrians, such as social security contribution exemptions, must be developed. We should note that the Minister of Interior Directorate General of Migration Management (DGMM) and UNHCR are currently undertaking a mapping exercise of the occupational skills of Syrians in Turkey. This is a promising move.

Allowing legal ways for Syrians to access the formal labour market in Turkey is vital to their self-reliance and integration efforts. Nonetheless, access to the labour market leading to economic integration is not a substitute for state protection (Betts and Collier Reference Betts and Collier2015). Syrians under temporary protection should be able to access their rights, such as the right to seek employment, not merely be at the mercy of how a host state decides to treat its ‘guests’.

Cash-based Interventions; Supporting Refugee Dignity and Basic Services

Cash-based interventions (CBIs), a type of market-based intervention that can be restricted or unconditional, have been lauded as valuable tools to support refugee protection and positively contribute to local economies, particularly in response to the rising urban ‘nature of displacement’ (UNHCR 2015b). A variety of international and Turkish civil society organizations have increasingly used cash-based assistance to cover basic needs and support refugee protection. Therefore, we pay specific attention to CBIs and their impacts in this section.

A thorough understanding of both the minimum expenditures required for families to meet basic needs and of the local market is necessary in the design, implementation and evaluation of cash-based assistance (Hobbs Reference Hobbs2016). Moreover, monitoring and evaluation are required during every step of a cash-based intervention and clearly there are challenges in ensuring this. Limited access to cash is welcome and a step in the right direction, however, it is not an all-encompassing solution for the protection of refugees. The following paragraphs will critically consider two recent CBIs.

The Kızılay Kart Emergency Social Safety Net programme,Footnote ² funded by the European Commission and operated by the World Food Programme, Turkish Red Crescent and the Government of Turkey, is a refugee-targeting cash-based intervention programme. The Kızılay Kart programme currently reaches more than 850,000 refugees and aims to reach 1.2 million people under temporary and international protection in Turkey, targeting the ‘most vulnerable’ refugees (ECHO-WFP 2017). However, a profile of a caseload in need of cash-based assistance found that ‘considerable’ numbers of households, which are not eligible to receive Kızılay Kart support, need basic needs support and complementary protection interventions (CBIWG 2017). Monitoring and assessment of the programme are underway; however, current challenges are already clear. First, individuals and families waiting for their temporary protection IDs to be processed have no means of accessing the assistance. In the same vein, to obtain an ID, one must register with the Turkish government and have an address; stable housing is already a concern for refugees. Moreover, Syrians wanting to apply for the programme need to apply in the district in which they have first registered in Turkey. Many persons and families travel to find work and livelihood opportunities outside of their approved district, they may or may not seek or be granted approval to reside in a new district. Thus, the mobility restrictions imposed on Syrians in Turkey make them ineligible to receive any temporary protection services such as access to education, free health care or the Kızılay Kart programme. Another recently launched large-scale CBI is the Conditional Cash Transfer for Education,Footnote ³ which mirrors a CBI, encouraging school attendance of Turkish children, and aims to incentivize 230,000 children to go to school (UN News 2017). Hopes are high for positive impacts from this initiative, particularly as it includes referrals of children to complementary protection services. However, similar accessibility concerns exist for this programme as for Kızılay Kart Emergency Social Safety Net, and there is a lack of accessible information on this intervention online in English, Turkish or Arabic.