Afghan refugees in Turkey: Deprived of basic rights, haunted by prospects of bleak future (II)
By Zan Times Staff
Note: Zan Times looked into the fate of Afghan refugees in Turkey during the current humanitarian crisis in Part 1: Death, misery and discrimination after the earthquakes Now, in Part 2, Zan Times investigates other longstanding problems facing Afghan refugees in Turkey.
In the first 53 days of this year – from January 1 to February 19 – the Turkish government deported 5,112 Afghan refugees to Afghanistan in 10 chartered flights. Those deportations continue the pattern of the previous year, when more than 124,000 Afghans were flown back to Afghanistan.
The anti-immigration politics in Turkey have intensified since 2017 when an intensification of its ongoing economic crisis caused rising inflation, unemployment, income inequality, and poverty. And now, ahead of this year’s elections, political parties of all stripes are engaging in heated anti-refugee diatribes, blaming them for a host of social and economic problems and promising to force them out of Turkey.
For this report, Zan Times talked to Afghan refugees in cities throughout Turkey. A common thread runs through their opinions of life in Turkey: They say that not only has Turkey stopped processing asylum applications by Afghan since the Taliban returned to power in August 2021, but most are being told they can’t even register their asylum applications.
Also, a number of Afghan asylum seekers tell Zan Times that, in addition to having their asylum applications rejected by immigration authorities, their Turkish residence permits were also invalidated, meaning that they cannot access basic public services, including health services and education, or even have the ability to legally rent accommodation or work.
Those problems and challenges are confirmed by Zakira Hekmat, head of the Afghan Refugee Solidarity Association (ARSA), who has worked with refugees in Turkey since 2009. She also says that the Turkish government stopped registering and issuing refugee cards to Afghans after the fall of the previous government in Afghanistan, after which many refugees came to Turkey. “In the past, singles were not registered, but, from August 2021, families will not be registered either,” she explains to Zan Times. “And efforts are being made to deport them to Afghanistan or Iran. Only families who are in exceptional circumstances are registered.”
Denying access to health services
Zakia Rezaei* is a 35-year-old woman whose husband worked with the security forces of the previous regime in Afghanistan. So when the Taliban regained control, they and their four children fled for their lives, first to Iran and then to Turkey. While in Iran, she began experiencing severe pain in one of her breasts. An Iranian doctor told her, “You should treat the lump in your right breast as soon as possible.” Since the family were in transit, they decided to seek treatment after they moved to Turkey in January 2022.
In the past year, Zakia Rezaei has trekked more than a dozen times to the Turkish immigration office in the city where she and her family now live. But each time, government officials tell her that they’ve been instructed that they aren’t allowed to issue asylum seeker cards to newly arrived Afghans. Without that card, she can’t find a hospital willing to treat her.
“I went to private hospitals because of my pain, but they refused to treat me due to me not having a residency permit,” Zakia Rezaei tells Zan Times. “I’m afraid of the future and I don’t know what will happen to my children.” She now depends on herbal medicines and non-prescription drugs to relieve her pain.
Such a lack of access to health services is not limited to newly arrived immigrants and asylum seekers in Turkey. Afghans also tell Zan Times that asylum seekers whose applications for international protection have been rejected by Turkish immigration authorities can no longer access medical help. Amina* is one such person affected. Recently, Turkey revoked the residence permits for the entire family, even though Amina and her eight children came to Turkey six years ago following the death of her sick husband in Kunduz province.
Three months ago, Amina’s eight-year-old son injured his head while playing with friends. Though Amina and bystanders rushed him to hospital, they couldn’t get him admitted. “When we entered the emergency section of the hospital, we were asked for an identity card in the patient registration department,” Amina recounts to Zan Times. “I gave them the number of my son’s identity card, but they did not accept it and said that your card is not valid.” Her son’s wound was left untreated until some Turkish citizens saw his injuries and transferred him to a private hospital, which bandaged his head.
The four-year-old daughter of another Afghan refugee was also denied medical help to remove her tonsils. “Not long ago, my daughter had a high fever and was vomiting. when I took her to the doctor, she refused to examine her,” says Nazira,* who has lived with her husband and six children in northern Turkey for more than seven years. Like Amina’s family, their residency permits were recently revoked after an interview with immigration officers, who determined that their asylum cases were deemed not to meet the criteria for those seeking asylum. As a result, they have been cut off from all social services.
Nazira got over-the-counter medicine at a pharmacy for her daughter but worries about the next flare up of her tonsils. She adds that they neither have permission to live in Turkey nor can they return to Afghanistan due to security problems.
Stopping access to education
Afghan refugees interviewed by Zan Times also say that a lack of residency permits also means that asylum seekers are being deprived of the right to an education. The school-age children of
Zakia Rezaei are among those affected. “My son was in the sixth grade, my daughter was in the fifth grade, and my younger daughter was in the second grade, but now they are out of school,” she says. “I left Afghanistan so that my children’s lives would be better, but now my children are miserable here.”
“My children have asked me why other children go to school and we can’t go?” she says. Zakia Rezaei has no answers. She’s repeatedly asked immigration authorities to allow her children to return to school, but they ignore her pleas. Now, she sends her 12-year-old son to work in a men’s hairdressing salon so that he can learn Turkish.
Farida, 28, is another Afghan refugee whose son has been denied the right to attend school. Unlike Zakia Rezaei, her asylum case has been accepted by the United Nations and a third country is willing to take her and her family. Yet, the Turkish immigration office in the city where she lives with her husband and their three children has rejected their asylum request. “The immigration authorities closed our case and all our documents were invalidated,” she explains to Zan Times. Though their eldest son can continue his academic studies because he was already registered at the local school, the educational authorities refused to register their younger son, who was starting first grade, explaining that their documents were invalid.
Leaving Turkey
According to Zakira Hekmat of ARSA, single asylum seekers who have been picked up by police are being detained at deportation centres, though families are less at risk of being expelled, with many continuing to live illegally in Turkey.
Some are taking extraordinary risks to leave Turkey. Zan Times discovered that a number of Afghans have even made the dangerous choice to request that they be returned back to Afghanistan because of the restrictions being imposed by the Turkish government.
Other desperate refugees are opting to pay smugglers to transport them by water into Europe. Many of those dilapidated boats sink before reaching their destinations. In late February, one such boat broke apart after crashing into the rocky shoreline of Italy, killing at least 63 migrants, including 12 children, are known to have died, according to a BBC report. It had left Turkey with more than 200 migrants from countries including Afghanistan, Somalia, Syria, and Iran.
The future for Afghan refugees in Turkey
Zakira Hekmat, the refugee rights activist in Turkey, worries that anti-refugee sentiments are surging as the presidential and parliamentary election campaigns heat up. “Currently, most parties use anti-refugee slogans,” she says, “and many of them promise that, if they win, they will expel the refugees from this country”
* The names of all those interviewed have been changed for their protection.
