The challenges facing Syrian refugees in Turkey
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 23 August 2019
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
As authorities in Istanbul start evicting undocumented migrants from their city, we look at the challenges facing Syrians generally in Turkey. Shrinking wages, child labour, and increasing hostility from many locals, are Syrians now paying the price of Turkey's economic slowdown?
(Photo: Placards are displayed by people gathered to protest against the Turkish government's recent refugee action, July 27, 2019. Credit: Getty Images.)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello there, I'm Ed Butler and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:05.9 | Today, as Turkey starts to evict undocumented migrants from its commercial capital, |
| 0:12.3 | we hear from one Syrian worker forced from job to job by his ruthless bosses. |
| 0:17.8 | Maybe like they're going to take like half of my salary or he is going to just |
| 0:22.5 | tell me like just leave the job. You need to quit the job. The bosses will kick you out. |
| 0:27.9 | Yes. Yes. With recession looming, are Syrians in Turkey falling victim to local hostility? |
| 0:34.2 | It is very important. It has, you know, reached the point of mobbing and sometimes |
| 0:39.9 | even lynching poor Syrians. The challenges facing the world's largest displaced population, |
| 0:45.8 | the Syrians of Turkey, here on Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 0:58.2 | A tram passes on the central streets of Istanbul. |
| 1:01.8 | It may be high tourist season in Turkey's commercial capital, |
| 1:04.3 | but there's also growing tension here. |
| 1:09.9 | The city's authorities have this week been telling some of the million or more Syrian migrants here to return to the Turkish regions |
| 1:12.6 | where they are formally registered. It's tearing families apart. Local authorities say it is a |
| 1:19.1 | necessary move to reduce the pressure on resources. Critics, though, disagree. It's a political |
| 1:24.2 | sock, they argue, to the anti-immigrant mood that's gripping the country. |
| 1:28.4 | And some migrants claim they are being forced against international law |
| 1:32.5 | to return to the Syrian conflict zone itself. |
| 1:36.2 | This man told the BBC's Mark Lowen how he was forcibly repatriated to Idlib. |
| 1:41.6 | He's since paid people smugglers to escape back to his family in Istanbul, |
| 1:45.9 | where he's now living in hiding. |
| 1:51.0 | The police gave us a paper which we had to sign and stamp with our fingerprint. |
... |
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