Refugees work between 13 and 14 hours per day without having insurance, social rights, security, and for peanuts and their work is unregistered. A field report conducted by Izza Leghtas, Human Rights Watch (HRW) Western Europe Researcher has also revealed these facts.  The report says many employers are often reluctant to cover the costs of work permits and face the administrative hurdles of hiring a refugee so they prefer hiring informal refugees and most refugees are confined to low-paying jobs.

Zeynep AKGÜL

Ankara- Refugees struggle to survive in poverty without adequate access to shelter, health, education services, and the right to work. Although many refugees in Turkey work, the majority do so in the informal labor market, where exploitation is widespread. Refugees have become new favorites for employers because they are low-cost and informal laborers.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) Western Europe Researcher Izza Leghtas conducted a field report named, “insecure future, Deportations and Lack of Legal Work for Refugees in Turkey.” The report reveals that most of the refugees work in the informal labor market without having work security and are often exploited.

According to the report, the climate for Syrians in Turkey has reached a critical juncture with Turkey’s economy in decline and unemployment on the rise.

In the report, Izza Leghtas focuses on the problems faced by women, the effects of identity checks, and the deportation of Syrians.

According to the report, the Syrian refugees under temporary protection in Turkey face huge legal obstacles in accessing the labor market. Other non-Syrian refugees also face similar obstacles.  Turkey introduced a work permit system for Syrian refugees in 2016, but permits must be requested by employers, who are often reluctant to cover the costs and face the administrative hurdles of hiring a refugee or are uninformed about how the process works.

As a result, most refugees are confined to low-paying jobs, many of them in small textile workshops and construction. Several higher-skilled Syrians say that the barriers to entry in their traditional professions forced them to pursue work in the informal labor market.

Turks believe that Syrian refugees are taking their jobs

The report says that the public discontent in Turkey is growing over the Syrian refugee population. The findings in the report are as follows;

“An increasing number of Turks believe that Syrian refugees are taking their jobs and that their government is spending excessive resources on services for Syrians. Some are even questioning the government’s decision to welcome Syrians in the first place. The result has been an increasingly hostile climate and rising discrimination against Syrians in Turkey.

In July 2019, Refugees International traveled to Gaziantep, Istanbul and Ankara to investigate refugees’ access to the labor market—a priority for refugees, humanitarians, and donors, but a politically charged topic for the host population. Nine years into the Syria crisis, with Turkey’s economy in decline and unemployment on the rise, the climate for Syrians in Turkey has reached a critical juncture. Turkish authorities conducted widespread identity checks in Syrian neighborhoods and subway and bus stations. These checks were followed by a wave of reported deportations of Syrian men to Idlib province in Syria. Turkish authorities denied these reports.

Some Syrians noted that it is increasingly difficult to find housing because landlords refuse to rent their homes to Syrians. Interviewees often said the media had played a role in portraying Syrians in a negative light.

Most Syrian and non-Syrian refugees continue to face precarious and often exploitative working conditions in Turkey’s informal sector. Of the 2 million Syrian refugees of working age, up to 1 million are estimated to be working. There is no official number of active work permits available. The vast majority of Turkey’s refugees work without work permits and outside the protections of the law. They have no social security and often receive wages below the legal minimum wage of TRY 2,020 (USD 365) net per month. Even for Turkish workers, informal work is widespread. Indeed, Turkey has a large informal labor market, in which one-third of workers are employed without social security.

Employers are reluctant to cover the cost of hiring a refugee

The work permit system poses a series of hurdles for Syrian refugees in Turkey. The main problem is that work permits must be requested by employers, many of whom are reluctant to cover the costs of hiring a refugee or are uninformed about the process for doing so.

Only 15 percent of Syrian women engage in gainful employment

Women represent about half of Turkey’s Syrian refugee population, yet their participation in the labor market is low. Indeed, only 15 percent of Syrian women engage in gainful employment, and even fewer have to work permits. Syrian women often want and need to work but are unable to do so because the types of jobs available to them are often in factories or workshops in the informal labor market, entailing long working hours and low pay. In addition, Syrian women generally bear most of the responsibility for childcare and household duties, and in some cases their husbands or other family members are opposed to their work outside the home.

Women refugees remain a largely underserved population. If this situation is to change, programs must address the barriers women currently face, including the lack of childcare and cultural norms that oppose women’s work outside the home. Also, any vocational trainings provided should go beyond gender-stereotyped roles to help women find jobs that need to be filled and empower them as participants in the formal labor market and as members of society.”

Cease all efforts to forcibly return refugees

The report also recommends Turkey immediately comply with international law and cease all efforts to forcibly return refugees to Syria, Afghanistan, or any other country where refugees would face a real risk of torture or other ill-treatment or persecution, to lower cultural barriers to the employment of women outside the home conduct educational sessions on the participation of women in the labor market for Syrian refugee communities, including male family members and community leaders.