Guest Contributor

Arif Akgul, School of Criminology and Security Studies, Indiana State University

As we have passed the 10-year mark of the Syrian conflict, it still remains the largest refugee crisis of our time. The escalation of war and conflict, security concerns, and human rights violations have caused many individuals to leave Syria. Since the beginning of the conflict, according to UN statistics, 12 million people have been displaced and more than six million have left for neighbouring countries. Today, Turkey by far is the top refugee hosting country in the world including 4 million Syrians. In fact, children under the age of 18 make up 47% of the Syrian population living in Turkey. In other words, more than 1.7 million Syrian refugees are children. More importantly, more than one million of these are under the age of 10. Consequently, it would not be misleading to say that women and children continue to pay the heaviest price of this crisis.

After the crisis started, the first mass movement of Syrians to Turkey began in early 2011 – a couple of hundred Syrians entered Turkey and the government took the necessary measures to accommodate the first comers; however, in the following years, Turkey did not have a clear policy for supporting the refugees, particularly as the numbers grew significantly higher than expected. The lack of a clear long-term policy and not being able to provide for the refugees beyond meeting their basic needs created a situation which violated the refugees’ rights from a human security perspective. The policies adopted during the initial period mostly focused on providing for basic needs and did not include any long-term solutions for integrating refugees into their host communities.

Since the early stages of the crisis, several international reports (e.g., Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, UNHCR, and the EU Parliament) have highlighted the security risks faced by Syrian refugees fleeing from the war, and by citizens of the refugee-hosting countries. Although Syrian refugees have been considered as a security threat by some countries, such as Hungary, Macedonia, Greece, and Romania, where they have been pushed back by the border police and denied the right to apply for asylum, Turkey and Syria’s neighboring countries considered the refugees as victims of war and in need of protection. In fact, in the early stages of the displacement, Turkey took a humanitarian approach to the crisis and did not regard the Syrian refugees as a security threat at all. Initially, Turkish institutions reacted by providing for the basic needs of the refugees, and the humanitarian agencies delivering health and social services daily at the border. However, Turkey’s approach to the refugees changed to a more pragmatic stance as time passed and the Syrian crisis became more of a security matter for Turkey’s regional policy. In other words, the situation of the Syrian refugees began to form part of the state’s security concerns. For example, the Syrian refugees in Turkey went through several stages during their stay, and each phase became more problematic as state policies failed to address the changing nature of refugee adaptation. During these different stages, Syrians have been variously conceptualized as ‘guests’, ‘migrants’, ‘temporary residents’,  ‘Muslim brothers and sisters’, and ‘victims of war’ by the state but they have not been considered as ‘refugees’ in the legal sense as defined in the 1951 Geneva Convention (UNHCR, 1951/1967). Instead, Turkey formed a ‘temporary protection regime’ for Syrians which created ambiguities in terms of their legal status and rights to employment, residency, and citizenship. On the other hand, according to research carried out by the Hrant Dink Foundation in 2017, Syrian refugees in Turkey are systematically referred to as criminals responsible for murder, theft, harassment, security issues, and terrorism in the media. Consequently, Syrians, who are also blamed for being a burden on the economy and creating unemployment, are exposed to significant forms of discrimination.

Although Turkey’s acceptance of the refugees is viewed as a sign of generosity and the hospitality provided after the conflict is greatly appreciated, several problems have emerged in regard to the education of children, employment opportunities, access to social services, and the security environment.

A field research was carried out by Akgul et al. (2021) in refugee camps and in some border cities of Turkey to examine the human security aspect of the Syrian refugee crisis and to analyze the vulnerability and victimization of Syrian refugees in Turkey. Five main themes were identified regarding the personal security of Syrians: violence, homelessness, prostitution and early marriage, child labour, and deadly journeys.

Violence is experienced at every stage of the migration journey, starting pre-departure (while still in Syria), continuing during the flight (crossing the border), when in transition (staying temporarily in the camps and cities), and during integration into the host country. As is indicated in the research, many violent incidents go unreported for various reasons. One officer addressed this issue as follows:

“In general, it can be said that there is an ‘unknown situation’ in matters of violence, public order, and crime because of the lack of research and the ‘dark figures’ of violence. Many of the incidents that involve Syrians are not reported even to the authorities, although they have become aware of some cases. If they start to investigate, there are enormous barriers in the criminal justice process, such as the legal status of refugees, the political situation, the language of the refugees, finding a translator, overcrowding of the jail population, and investigating the cases. But the violence involving Syrians has increased significantly, although it is not reflected in the statistics.”

Another theme emerged from the research is the prostitution and early marriages. After arriving in another country, refugees become more vulnerable to sexual exploitation, whether they live in a camp or a city, because many of the refugees are dependent on the financial and economic support of others. Some people take advantage of the refugees’ hardship and exploit their helplessness. The United Nations reports indicate that states should establish support services for victims of gender-based violence, rape, and sexual exploitation, including refugees. This is a challenging goal to achieve due to their numbers and fluctuating placement in various part of the country.

Several credible national and international reports prepared by various NGOs working for the refugees (i.e. Amnesty International, the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation, and Mazlumder – the Turkish Association for Human Rights and Solidarity for the Oppressed), have also pointed to sexual harassment and the sexual exploitation of refugee women, especially those who are underage and economically vulnerable.

Because of a lack of proper documentation such as passports and identity papers, and the bureaucratic challenges, it is extremely difficult for Syrians to get a work permit from the government. Therefore, they can only find work in risky or unsafe and poorly regulated sectors, particularly in the agricultural, construction, and automotive sectors, for example, which have experienced a shortage of labor. Syrians, especially young men, are exploited as a source of cheap labor. However, according to the representatives in the sector, better educated and skilled Syrians generally try to reach EU countries instead to procure a better and more secure life for themselves and their families.

One government employee that was interviewed claimed that Syrian children are at a great risk of exploitation because many of them are on the streets, instead of school, begging for money and food to support their families.

An important finding of the research is the impact of illegal border crossings on personal security, which is conceptualized as the ‘violence of the borders.’ According to Human Rights Watch, in 2015 alone, more than 420,000 Syrians left Turkey by boat to reach EU countries via Greece. However, the migration route to Greece and other EU countries is highly risky and unsafe for refugees, as several studies and international reports documented. Tens of thousands of refugees have died on these deadly journeys while crossing the borders, which represents a significant threat to their personal security. Since 2013, thousands of Syrians have been rescued or their attempts intercepted by the Turkish and Greek authorities, either in the Mediterranean Sea or on the Turkish-Greek land border. The latest reports indicated that the number of deaths of migrants in the Mediterranean is much higher than in any other region of the world, although it has been decreasing for the last three years, from 3,116 in 2017 to 1,246 in 2019 and also due to the COVID-19 restrictions in recent years.

Syrian refugees are exposed to several human insecurity parameters at the individual level, which are largely neglected by the state. Consequently, Turkey’s failure to promote the human security of the Syrian refugees contributes to their forced migration to Western countries, where ‘freedom from fear’, ‘freedom from want’, and ‘freedom from indignity’ are relatively assured.