We Refugees Archive

 

MAPPING THE REFUGEE POPULATION

Istanbul is the largest host of Syrian refugees of all of Turkey’s cities. According to the latest official numbers, 15.7 % of the Syrian refugees in Turkey, or approximately 485,227, are registered in Istanbul.

Generally, in Istanbul refugees chose to settle in areas where urban poor are clustered. According to descriptive statistics, there is a negative correlation between refugees’ top choices of residence and the quality of life provided in those towns. 22Erdogan, M., 2017: Urban Refugees from Detachment to Harmonization: Syrian Refugees and Process Management of Municipalities. The Case of Istanbul. Marmara Municipalities Union. Although each district in Istanbul hosts sizable numbers, Syrian refugees are mostly clustered around certain areas, such as Kucukcekmece, Sultangazi, Bagcilar, and Sultanbeyli, where poverty is prevalent, conservatism and religiousness is part of everyday life, informal social networks are active among urban poor, and life is considerably cheaper compared to the other parts of Istanbul. 33Erdogan, M., 2017: Urban Refugees from Detachment to Harmonization: Syrian Refugees and Process Management of Municipalities. The Case of Istanbul. Marmara Municipalities Union

LIVELIHOODS

According to the Sultanbeyli household survey, 96% of Syrian refugees indicated employment as their main source of income. However, only 38% of refugees of working age Syrian refugees were employed, reflecting the shared Syrian and Turkish cultural practice in which men are seen as responsible for making a living for the family, while women stay at home and take care of the household.

Low income was cited as the main problem of all refugees regardless of their educational background. The survey indicated that respondents earned an average of 858 Turkish Liras (approximately USD 230 ) per capita, with an average household income of 1,207 Turkish lira (USD 300).

Many refugees experience downward occupational mobility in Sultanbeyli. Another Syrian refugee, Amira, who visits the center regularly to check out the job postings said: “I used to have a high-ranking position at a bank in Syria. All they offer for Syrian women here are housekeeping and cleaner jobs.”

Except for a few refugees working in the public sector, almost all refugees in Sultanbeyli are informally employed, with long working hours, no social security, and exposure to other forms of exploitation. Kemal, the head of the refugee coordination center, said, “Many refugees come here to complain about their employers. There are several cases of fraud, when employers refuse to pay at the end of the month. But we cannot do anything about it, since the work is informal. Syrians can’t file a complaint, or take their complaints to the court if they do not have documents.”

Employers, on the other hand, think there are both pros and cons to hiring Syrians. A textile factory owner who visited the coordination center to recruit Syrians for his production line, said it is a win-win situation for both employers and Syrians: “we pay them less, but they need jobs, and it is our duty to help them.” However, Turkish employers also express discontent about Syrian employees. Many think Syrians cannot keep up with the responsibilities of the modern work environment.

One employer said, “One never knows if they will show up the next morning, or after how many days, sometimes hours, they will give up and quit. I can’t rely on them.”

SOCIAL INTEGRATION

In general, refugees travel to Sultanbeyli through chain migration. Typically, a family sends a young male member to the district, and he rents an apartment and finds a job. After he has established a relatively secure anchor, he is then followed by his family. In some cases, the entire extended family eventually moves into Sultanbeyli. According to the survey, when asked why they chose Sultanbeyli as their final destination, 74% of refugee respondents said it was because they had family in Sultanbeyli, while 14% said a friend recommended it to them, and 10% said it was primarily selected for affordable accommodation and job opportunities. These reasons suggest social capital plays an important role in migration decisions.

Many refugee families stay in their close circles and do not develop new social connections. Most interviewees named a close family member as their best friend. For example, Habir, who is a 27-year-old single woman, said her family members are her best friends; she has no other friends in Turkey. In terms of social activities, she has been to the park next to their apartment only once. Similarly, Leyla who is 20 years old and married, said her in-laws are very conservative and do not let her socialize with people they do not know, so she can only socialize within her family.

However, the household survey reflected that 57% of all refugee families expressed that they were either “very content” or “content” with their neighbors because they feel welcomed. Rima, a former dentist and now a housewife, said her Turkish neighbors are the most sincere and helpful people she has ever met: “they have been incredibly helpful to us in every manner. One of them helped me to register my children to the school. She even went to their parents’ meeting to cover for me,” she said.

For refugees, language is the primary barrier to integration. Learning Turkish is significant for many reasons: besides increasing refugees’ access to information, to public services, and to work opportunities, learning the local language is a door to the social life of the host population in Sultanbeyli. Three separate community centers in Sultanbeyli (the Refugee Coordination Center, the Red Crescent, and the Blue Crescent) have free Turkish language classes for men and women.

Refugees attending the Turkish class for women at the Red Crescent described the community center as a place where they make friends, forget about everyday problems, and laugh together. One said: “we did not know each other before coming here, but now we are like a second family.”

Women in particular benefit from Sultanbeyli’s community centers. Seyma, a psychologist providing psychosocial support at the Red Crescent, said almost all of her clients are women. “We are talking about the poorest of the poor here,” she added. Most men work during the day, so they cannot benefit from the center which is only open during business hours. However, this is not the only reason, said Seyma: “compared to women, men are more reserved when it comes to opening up to strangers about their personal lives. They do not want to talk to us. We are worried, because there is a large male population out there who we cannot help at all.” The unequal access to services between women and men is likely to create problems in long term integration.

SOCIAL INTEGRATION & INFORMATION ACCESS

In addition to being substitutes for local friends, refugees view their families as the most reliable source of information about daily life in Sultanbeyli. Information flows from the first family member to arrive in Sultanbeyli to the last member who arrived. When asked how they found an apartment for example, most refugees said a friend or extended family member who arrived earlier helped them find it.

Despite their economic hardships, most refugees in Sultanbeyli had smartphones and access to the Internet. These smartphones were hardly an extravagance, but rather important both to keep in touch with family members still in Syria, and as a source of information about daily needs–usually through social media platforms such as Facebook, WhatsApp, and Line. Instead of browsing the open Internet for answers to questions about life in Turkey, Sultanbeyli’s refugees usually ask for information through social media from people they personally know.

Finding a job also depends on how well a refugee is socially connected. Many refugees find jobs through Halil Bey, the head of the Department of Strategy Development and the municipal government official responsible for refugee integration. Some refugees complained about favoritism in the job market, for example Nour, who had a senior position at a company in Raqqa, and said, “If you are not from Aleppo, you can only suffer in Sultanbeyli … In practice, all decent jobs in Sultanbeyli are exclusively for people from Aleppo.”

HOUSING & PUBLIC SERVICES

When it comes to housing, informal ties among Turkish migrants have traditionally replaced formal state bureaucracy in Sultanbeyli. Pinarciklioglu and Isik describe Sultanbeyli as a town “almost entirely composed of unauthorized housing.” 44Pinarcioğlu, M., & Işik, O, 2008: Not only helpless but also hopeless: Changing dynamics of urban poverty in Turkey, the case of Sultanbeyli, İstanbul. European Planning Studies, 16(10), 1353–1370.

The urban poor do not rely on formal housing assistance. However, this practice is changing with the continuing migration of Syrians into Sultanbeyli. The presence of state and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) is increasing, with new organizations arriving every month.

Through international support and resources, the municipal government is also increasingly involved in refugees’ lives. While state and international organizations improve the quality of services and care for refugees, this may have eroded solidarity networks among Syrians in Sultanbeyli. Ola, a 27-year-old woman with three children, said, “there is competition for aid among Syrians.” Similarly, Ragat said of her Syrian neighbors: “anytime they hear about distribution of free food or clothes, they keep it to themselves. I do not know how many times I saw free supplies delivered to their apartment, but they have no intention to share.”

ORGANIZATION AND GOVERNANCE

Religion plays an active role in Sultanbeyli’s civil society. Since the mid-1980s, Sultanbeyli has been known as the heart of Islamist political activism in Istanbul, with migrant networks serving as an important driver of Islamization in the 1990s when pious rural migrants were attracted to the town. 55Tuğal, C. Z., 2006: The appeal of Islamic politics: ritual and dialogue in a poor district of Turkey. The Sociological Quarterly, 47(2), 245-273. All but a few Syrian refugees in Sultanbeyli today are Sunni Muslims, and most are comfortable with their Turkish neighbors because they have similar cultural and religious backgrounds. For example, during the holy month of Ramadan, two communities meet for iftars (fast- breaking dinner) organized by pro-Islamist civil society organizations.

Syrian refugees in Turkey do not have the right to vote since they are registered under temporary protection status. However, that does not mean that they are politically inactive. Syrians in Sutanbeyli do not hold back from expressing their gratitude to AKP, the current ruling party of President Erdogan. On 15 July 2016 when the military rolled in to Istanbul in an attempted coup, many Syrians took to the streets demonstrating against the coup in support of Erdogan. In the aftermath of the coup attempt, Syrians were among the most fervent to join the pro-Erdogan democracy protests, coming out to the streets nightly for a month.

CONCLUSION

Sultanbeyli, one of the districts with the lowest life quality in Istanbul, has always been a migrant hub, and will continue to play this role into the future. The size and intensity of the most recent Syrian migration to the district has raised concerns about already limited resources there. Despite the Turkish government’s overall focus on centralized solutions, Sultanbeyli Municipality has found effective ways to identify refugees’ needs and match them to service delivery organizations at the local level. Their research-based approach, use of innovative data-gathering and analysis tool, and hands on coordination between stakeholders are all good practice to be emulated elsewhere.

Syrian refugees chose to live in Sultanbeyli for different reasons: some wanted to be closer to their families, some thought the district has the most affordable accommodation in Istanbul, and some said Sultanbeyli is where they feel culturally integrated. Unlike refugees living in many other districts in Istanbul, the majority of Syrian refugees in Sultanbeyli feel welcomed in their new home.

Despite the poverty and longing for their lives back in Syria, they believe that they can build new lives and futures for their children in Sultanbeyli. They express their appreciation about the municipality’s outstanding efforts for service provision, and their Turkish neighbors’ hospitality towards them.

However, Sultanbeyli is not all roses for refugees. Many Syrians are unemployed, and those with jobs are working informally, often in adverse conditions without employment protection. It is still too early to say what the future holds for these new residents of Sultanbeyli, but they will likely continue settling in for the foreseeable future. In so doing they are changing the town, and contributing new tiles to the town’s mosaic.

THE FUTURE OF INTEGRATION IN SULTANBEYLI

Syrian refugees in Sultanbeyli do not plan to leave Turkey in the short term, but they also wish to go back to Syria when the war is over. According to the Municipality’s survey, when asked about future movement within a year, almost all (98%) of respondents said they had no plans to move anywhere else. The main reasons for not wanting to move were because they were not able to (23%); they are sick of moving (23%); Sultanbeyli offers the most affordable housing (20%); and they liked the neighborhood and their neighbors (14%). However, during in-depth interviews, almost all refugees said they hoped to go back to Syria when the war is over.

For men, finding a steady job with decent pay is a long-term priority. Many want to start their own businesses and report self-employment as the only way out of unemployment. By contrast, many women said they did not have any future plans for themselves, and tended to talk instead about plans for their children or their husbands’ futures. For example, Ola said she does not have any plans for herself, but her husband wants to open a business in Turkey. Many women focus on getting by day by day, instead of planning their futures in Sultanbeyli. Mulfide, for example, said that she has no other plans than keeping “her children’s stomachs full.”

References

 

Zeynep Balcioglu is a Ph.D. student at Northeastern University focusing on social capital among refugees in Turkey. She has prior experience working with several non-governmental organizations in Turkey, and is presently an advisor to the Boston Consortium for Arab Region Studies. She lives in Istanbul, her home city.

Footnotes

• 2Erdogan, M., 2017: Urban Refugees from Detachment to Harmonization: Syrian Refugees and Process Management of Municipalities. The Case of Istanbul. Marmara Municipalities Union.
• 3Erdogan, M., 2017: Urban Refugees from Detachment to Harmonization: Syrian Refugees and Process Management of Municipalities. The Case of Istanbul. Marmara Municipalities Union
• 4Pinarcioğlu, M., & Işik, O, 2008: Not only helpless but also hopeless: Changing dynamics of urban poverty in Turkey, the case of Sultanbeyli, İstanbul. European Planning Studies, 16(10), 1353–1370.
• 5Tuğal, C. Z., 2006: The appeal of Islamic politics: ritual and dialogue in a poor district of Turkey. The Sociological Quarterly, 47(2), 245-273.