Refugee 101: They may not be called as “Refugee” in Turkey
According to Global Conflict Tracker, there are 26 ongoing conflicts all over the world. UNHCR stated that there are 20.4 million people who forcibly displaced their home countries in 2019. Only 5.6 million of these people can get the refuge status so they could gain some rights to live in supported conditions.
Turkey is both a migrant-receiving and migrant-sending country. Before the Syrian war, people from Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia mostly resettled to Turkey. Turkey became the most refugee- receiving country with the starting of the Syrian war. Since 2011, many Syrian people choose to come to Turkey because of culture, religion, and language reasons. According to official numbers, there are 3.9 million Syrian people in Turkey. How come these people cannot be called as refugees then?
You cannot find a refugee word in the official reports from Turkey. It can be a little strange experience if you read the official reports for the first time and see the words as guests, and people under temporary protection used for Syrian people in Turkey. There is a political explanation for this issue.
Turkey signed the Geneva Convention in 1951. Seven years later it was approved by the Turkish government. However, there are two restrictions in this convention; time and geographical restriction. With the time restriction, Turkey accepted people from Europe as refugees because of the “incidents that happened in Europe before 1951”. In 1967, this restriction is removed but the geographical restriction is sustained. It means that Turkey cannot give refugee status to anyone who does not come from European countries. Thus, if someone wants to escape from a war in the Middle Eastern or African countries, Turkey cannot give legal refugee status to this person because of the restrictions.
What happens now?
Since there was an unexpected number of people came from Syria in 2011, Turkey changes the Law on Foreigners and International Protection in 2013. It was aimed to ease Syrian refugees’ entry in Turkey. In 2014, the Temporary Protection Regulation was issued. Syrian people who want to stay in Turkey can gain some rights with this regulation. For example, they could start to work in a legal way and continue their life. Furthermore, urgent and temporary protection could be given to Syrian people with this law as well. Even the intention was good with this regulation, it was not as effective as the refugee status.
Now, Syrian people who are in Turkey can get work permits, may get some money aids which is given by mostly EU and other countries to help Syrian citizens in Turkey. That is why Syrian citizens can get many different names but not the name “refugee” in the official reports.
So, the situation is getting more complicated with the growing and current issues like covid-19! No matter what, we shouldn’t forget that;
“No one puts their children in a boat unless the water is safer than the land.”
Warsan Shire
