Migration to Turkey and Human Trafficking
Turkey's geographical location, between the East and the West, and the North and the South, has made the country a transit zone for many migrants intending to reach western and northern countries. As Turkey shares borders with many of the countries in these regions and has cultural and ethnic ties with many of them, there are several channels of access into Turkey
Turkey has received migration from the Middle East, the former Soviet Union and the Balkans, and Africa. Some of them enter the country without legal documentation to seek shelter on a temporary basis and then move on to another country, while others arrive in Turkey with the aim of working for a short period of time. Those who choose Turkey as transit zone also work to survive
Turkey does not define itself as a country of immigration, but the absence of effective immigration controls has made the country vulnerable to various types of easy entries and stays. In response to becoming a de facto country of first asylum and to the mass influxes of people from the Middle East during and after the Gulf War, Turkey implemented a new regulation on asylum seekers, which became effective on Nov. 30, 1994
Trafficking in human beings, particularly of women and children, has been denounced by the international community as an egregious and profound human rights abuse, a form of 'modern slavery' and a particular form of violence against women. It is a security concern. There is a relationship between organized crime and the illegal migration of labor, since organized crime organizes human trafficking and illegal employment
European Union (EU) leaders placed illegal immigration atop the agenda for the EU Council summit in Seville, Spain on June 24. One of the reasons for this was the recent upsurge in right-wing electoral support across Europe.
The inability of the EU leaders to manage the complex mix of migrants and asylum seekers converging on their borders is causing them major political headaches and is making daily headlines across Europe. Voters are expressing their frustration over what they perceive to be weak and ineffective government policies. They want action, and governments appear to be listening. The public anger is complicated by the anxiety that the population increase in the EU countries is mainly generated by two non-European population sources: the higher rate of birth among the Middle Eastern and Asian migrants who are either citizens of the EU countries or are staying in the country with residence and work permits, and the ever increasing number of illegal migrant workers.
Before the Seville summit, Turkey, a southeast European country connecting Europe to Asia, received warnings from the EU countries to tighten its border controls and to prevent human trafficking and the flow of illegal migrant workers via Turkey to Europe.
Is there a problem with illegal migration in Turkey. The answer is "yes." Since the beginning of the 1980s, Turkey has become a country of illegal migration and a de facto country of first asylum, as explained below.
Historically, Turkey has been the center of migration. From the early 19th century, with the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire, Turks living in the Balkans and the Caucasus began migrating to Istanbul and Anatolia. Later, in 1923, with the compulsory population exchange between Turkey and Greece, involving a total number of well over 1.5 million people, large number of Greeks left their homes in Turkey and Turks left their homes in Greece. The migration of minorities, including Armenians, Jews and Greeks, to Greece, the United States and Israel, continued during the 1940s and early 1970s.
In the early 1960s a new episode began in the history of migration. When the labor supply exceeded the labor demand in Turkey, Turks began to migrate to Western Europe, where there was a demand for foreign labor. Until the mid-1980s, huge numbers of people from Turkey had been migrating to Western Europe and Australia to search for jobs and better life standards. In the 1980s, many more migrated to find freedom and to seek political asylum. A large number of Turks also moved to the Gulf countries to work in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s. The job market in Western Europe and the Gulf became saturated in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Migration from Turkey to Western Europe, the United States, Australia and New Zealand continues, but the number of migrants is much smaller when compared to the 1970s and 1980s.
Migration has changed direction, and today, Turkey is both a "receiving" and a "transit" country. There are two factors that shape the current human mobility toward Turkey. First, the recent political turmoil, civil wars, and clashes in the Middle East, the Balkans and the Caucasus regions have pushed migrants into the country with the hope of a better life, security and protection from persecution. Second, Turkey's geographical location between the East and the West, and the North and the South, has made the country a transit zone for many migrants intending to reach western and northern countries. As Turkey shares borders with many of the countries in these three regions and has cultural and ethnic ties with many of them, there are several channels of access into Turkey.
Consequently, Turkey has received migration from the Middle East, the former Soviet Union and the Balkans, and Africa. Some of them enter the country without legal documentation to seek shelter on a temporary basis and then move on to another country, while others arrive in Turkey with the aim of working for a short period of time. Those who choose Turkey as transit zone also work to survive.
Gender is a factor in the division of labor: women from Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Romania, and Moldova often work as prostitutes, bar girls, and dancers, while a minority work as sales people in Laleli and Aksaray in Istanbul, where Russians, Ukrainians, Bosnians, Bulgarians, Romanians as well as Tunisians, and Algerians come to buy huge quantities of textiles and leather products to sell in their countries. Among the illegal female migrant workers, there are many domestic workers from Moldova and Azerbaijan, who replaced the young women from the Philippines. Men do a variety of work ranging from working in the construction sector, in tea plantation in the Black Sea, in textile and leather factories (e.g. Bulgarians and Bosnians working in workshops in Pangalti and in Bursa; Pakistanis and Afghanis illegally employed in Zeytinburnu leather workshops), to teaching Caucasus dances (e.g. Chechens in Istanbul). This observation was made during field work done in 1994-5 and in 2002.
Since the beginning of the 1980s, Turkey has become a major country of asylum and more than 2 million people have sought refuge in Turkey in one form or another. During field work done in 1994-1995, we met Sudanese and Algerians who fled their countries because of the civil war; we encountered Afghanis who abandoned the country that had been in turmoil since the beginning of 1980s; we came across a large number of Iranians who had been "guests" without legal status for many years in Turkey. Turkey applies the 1951 Geneva Convention with geographical limitation.
Accordingly, legal obligations were applied only to persons who sought asylum as a result of events in Europe, and there was no obligation with regard to non-European refugees. Partly, as a consequence of the anti-Communist policy during the Cold War, this meant that Turkey granted refugee status only to people coming from Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Iranians were non-European asylum seekers. Therefore, Iranians were not recognized as asylum seekers under the terms of the Geneva Convention, but they were allowed to remain as tourists for a certain period of time, subject to regular extensions. Those who entered Turkey without legal documentation frequently transited Turkey, but some of them stayed and continue to live without any legal documentation or identity.
Turkey hosted around 3 million Iranians who left Iran after the Revolution in 1979. Some of them entered Turkey illegally with the assistance of human-traffickers. The majority of them left Turkey after obtaining visas to Western Europe, the United States, Australia and Canada. However, there are still a large number of Iranians (the estimates range from 200,000-500,000) living in Turkey (see < nilufer="" narli="">> . 1995. Migration of Labor and Capital to Turkey," a research report submitted to the Center for Turkish Studies (Turkey Arastirmalari Merkezi) in Essen, Germany).
Approximately 600,000 Iraqis, mostly Kurds, poured into Turkey between 1988-1991. As the social and economic situation deteriorated in Iraq, human smugglers brought many Iraqis to Turkey, while some of them entered with valid documents and obtained residence permits. Approximately 25,000 Bosnians sought refugee status in Turkey from 1992 to 1994, while the majority of them considered Turkey a transit country, some of them stayed here and built businesses. Some of them arrived as tourists with former Yugoslavian passports, but many entered without legal documents.
Approximately 400,000 ethnic Turks from Bulgaria entered Turkey as a result of deportation under President Todor Jivkov and his policy of changing Turkish names to Bulgarian names in 1989. One fourth of them returned home, but 300,000 are still living and working in Turkey (mainly Bursa and Istanbul). Since the late 1980s, thousands of transit migrants have also arrived from African and Asian countries, such as Ghana, Tanzania, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Sudan, Algeria, Tunisia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Pakistan. In Istanbul, Tarlabasi, Taksim, Laleli, Aksaray, and the area near Suleymaniye and the Manifaturacilar Bazaar are places where one can encounter illegal migrant workers.
Turkey does not define itself as a country of immigration, but the absence of effective immigration controls has made the country vulnerable to various types of easy entries and stays. In response to becoming a de facto country of first asylum and to the mass influxes of people from the Middle East during and after the Gulf War, Turkey implemented a new regulation on asylum seekers, which became effective on Nov. 30, 1994. It was entitled, "Regulations on the Procedures and the Principles Related to Mass Influx and the Foreigners Arriving in Turkey or Requesting Residence Permits with the Intention of Seeking Asylum from a Third Country."
After this regulation came into effect, asylum seekers were able to enjoy some form of protection. However, they mostly benefited from "a certain degree of pragmatism and flexibility on the part of the authorities." The "flexibility" and the absence of rigid controls have enabled large numbers of illegal migrant workers to work in Turkey. Many human traffickers and women traffickers also benefited from the circumstances, making large quantities of money. The issues of illegal labor and human trafficking are concerns for the human right groups, labor organizations and for the security studies.
Trafficking in human beings, particularly of women and children, has been denounced by the international community as an egregious and profound human rights abuse, a form of "modern slavery" and a particular form of violence against women. It is a security concern. There is a relationship between organized crime and the illegal migration of labor, since organized crime organizes human trafficking and illegal employment. Drug production and smuggling networks coexist with criminal organizations, exerting a crime multiplier for them and for militias, guerrillas and terrorists. Criminal groups of all levels of sophistication are involved in the trafficking of human beings. These range from small, informal networks to well-organized international trafficking rings. In some cases, the same criminal organizations engaged in trafficking women appear to be involved in other illicit activities, including drug and automobile smuggling, with interrelated profits.
The issue of illegal labor and human trafficking was ignored in Turkey for a long time. When I announced my research on the migration of illegal labor to Turkey in 1994-1995, which reveled that there were around 3.5-4 million people (including Iranians) living and working in Turkey illegally, it did not create any response. I updated the research in 2002 and am close to finishing my field work.
In the 2000s, the problems of illegal workers and human trafficking have attracted the attention of local and foreign media, as well as international organizations and nongovernmental organization (NGOs). According to Turk-Is estimates, in 2001, the number of illegal workers was around 4.5 million. However, the Labour and Social Security Ministry's Yasar Okuyan gave a different figure: 1 million. Speaking at a meeting in Konya, Okuyan underlined the threat posed by illegal foreign workers on Turkish labor force, saying, "Ivan is steeling the bread of worker Mehmet" (quoted in Medyakronik on July 25, 2001; www.medyakronik.com). He underlined the need for legal arrangements to neutralize illegal foreign labor in Turkey. Foreign workers have become a social problem with the deepening of the economic crisis in Turkey since February 2001.
In finding a solution to human trafficking and the smuggling of migrant workers, it is essential to conduct studies on the definition of human smuggling, its social organization, its political and economic significance and the political ramifications of human smuggling across national borders.
One should also understand that smugglers and traffickers in the Middle east, Balkans and the former Soviet Union are deeply integrated into the social fabric of indigenous settings, though not uniformly, and are facilitated by a loose network of recruiters, middlemen, actual smugglers, local and foreign financiers, and government officials and police on the take. Increasing the knowledge of the general public on the issues of human trafficking and the smuggling of illegal workers, and mobilizing the civil society to organize seminars and activities to prevent human trafficking are also important. (NN/NM)
* The feature was published in July 9 by the Ankara based English language daily newspaper Turkish Daily News .
* Prof. Dr. Nilufer Narli is the chair of Sociology Department of Istanbul's Marmara University.