Abstract
Migration can be simply defined as “an act of moving in certain period of time and place” but it should not be forgotten that this is a versatile phenomenon. Recently, the number of people willing and competent to this move has increased significantly. When the international migration and refugee problem becomes evident, it affects the political, economic, and sociocultural structures in countries of destination and origin. The phenomenon of international migration also has a strong and serious effects on immigrants. However, approaches and policies to the phenomenon of migration mostly have a male-dominated perspective. The lack of studies regarding the distinction of integration problems according to gender roles is remarkable. This situation decreases the visibility of the female immigrant population in international arena. Although the increase on the rate of women in migrant population female immigrants rate lately changes this situation, it can be said that the mainstream perspective on migration continues. Hereby, this study includes Syrian female refugee’s integration problems in Turkey. It will take notice of the mutual effect between gender roles and integration. The study was carried out by analyzing statistical data and qualitative studies in Turkey, aims to carry out a sociological projection study.
Key Worlds: Syrian Female Immigrant, Acculturation, Segregation, Ethnic Model, Feminist Perspective.
Özet
Göç basitçe “belirli bir zaman ve mekan içerisinde yer değiştirme eylemi” olarak tanımlanabilir ancak göç olgusunun çok yönlü bir fenomen olduğu unutulmamalıdır. Son günlerde göç hareketine istekli ve yetkin kişi sayısı önemli ölçüde artış göstermiştir. Uluslararası göç ve mülteci sorunu ortaya çıktığında, varış ve çıkış ülkelerindeki siyasi, ekonomik ve sosyo-kültürel yapıları etkilemektedir. Uluslararası göç olgusunun göçmenler üzerinde de güçlü ve ciddi etkileri vardır. Öte yandan göç olgusuna yönelik yaklaşımlar ve politikalar çoğunlukla erkek egemen bir perspektife sahiptir. Literatürde, entegrasyon sorunlarının toplumsal cinsiyet rollerine göre farklılaşması konusunda çok fazla analiz yapılmaması dikkat çekicidir. Bu durum, kadın göçmen nüfusun uluslararası arenadaki görünürlüğünün azaltmaktadır. Göçmen nüfustaki kadın oranının son günlerde artması bahsi geçen durumu değiştirse de ana akım göç perspektifinin devam ettiğini söylemek mümkündür. Sonuç olarak, çalışma Suriyeli mülteci kadınların Türkiye’deki entegrasyon sorunlarını içermektedir. Çalışma, toplumsal cinsiyet rollerinin ve entegrasyonun karşılıklı etkisini dikkate alacaktır. Türkiye’de gerçekleştirilen nitel çalışmalar ve istatistiksel veriler analiz edilerek gerçekleştirilen çalışma, sosyolojik projeksiyon çalışması gerçekleştirmeyi hedeflemektedir.
Anahtar Kelimeler: Suriyeli Kadın Göçmen, Kültürleşme, Segrasyon, Etnik Model, Feminist Bakış Açısı.
Introduction
Migration is described as “movement” in its simplest form in the literature. Beside this definition, the concept of migration has a complex structure that includes many variables. Migration has been classified by various scales. These scales are the distance of migration, the reasons for migration, the methods used during migration, the political-social situation in receiving country. In this context migration can occur in these forms: individual, mass, chain; internal, international; temporary, permanent, transit; forced, willing; irregular, illegal. The research article is aimed to investigate and analyze immigration movement from Syria to Turkey after the Arab Spring in Turkey. This movement can be labelled as an individual, mass, chain or temporary, permanent and transit migration but one thing is certain, that this movement is a forced and an international movement.
The phenomenon of immigration is an important subject of sociology. Also, there are a lot of psychological effects of immigration on immigrants. Recent researches show us that, the phenomenon of immigration is becoming a political phenomenon. Therefore, immigration has become a subject of political science and international relations. As a result, despite being completely different scientific disciplines; economics, sociology, demography, geography, history, psychology, international relations, political science, and some other related disciplines are positioned to be treated as immigration-related issues by different perspectives (İçduygu and Sirkeci, 1999 p.249). As a result, throughout history, immigration phenomenon has affected the lives of societies and individuals in economic, political, cultural, social, and psychological aspects in a multifaceted way (Şahin, 2001, p.58).
Considering that the concept of immigration is an interdisciplinary work, it is an undeniable fact that immigrants will also be affected by the immigration phenomenon in many ways. Based on this “multi-faceted influence”, Göhler categorized the emotional experiences of immigrants regardless of their age, gender, reason for migration, and social class. These emotional experiences are sense of strangeness, sense of loneliness, sense of emptiness, sense of longing, personality problems, rootlessness, humiliation of the values, sense of inferiority, humiliation of the mother tongue, skepticism, resentment, sense of guilt, and the prejudgment (Göhler, 1990, p.68; as cited in: Şahin, 2001, p.64-65). This article examined Turkish literature considering this. As a result, the areas in which Syrian refugees have struggles with can be represented as unemployment problem, language problem, integration problem, having difficulty in accessing health services, education problem, need for psycho-social support (Aslan& Güngör, 2009, p.1609, table 5).
Although immigrants have “temporary protected” status in Turkey; we should not ignore that it consists of people with different statuses, roles, and identities in society such as women, children, the elderly and the disabled. Turkey Statistical Institute (TUIK) datas shows us, Turkey’s population is 64.729.501 people in 2000. In addition, this datas, 234.111 people immigrated in 2000. This immigrant population has 103.349 female immigrants inside. According to data from the year 2019-2020, Turkey’s population grow up and become 83.614.362 people. The immigrant population is 677.042 people in 2019 and this immigrant population has 308.527 female immigrants inside. (Türkiye İstatistik Kurumu, 2019). When the data are investigated, it is possible to say that there is an intensity of women in the immigrant population, so studies that work with female immigrant are important in Turkey. Many policies around the world about migration have been created with a male-dominated perspective, thus the visibility of the female immigrant population in the international arena decreases. Though the increase on the proportion of women in the immigrant population today has moved to a point that it increases the visibility of women in migration studies, the mainstream migration understanding still continues.
Despite Turkey’s rich history of migration, a lot of study have male-dominated perspective in migration studies and there aren’t enough studies in literature to understand female immigrants in phenomenon of migration. In general female immigrants in migration study are shown us in numbers, statistics, and datas. Syrian female immigrants in Turkey have two major disadvantages by being both a female and an immigrant. Because of their status and them being socially deprived, they have not certain citizen rights and also, they are exposed to social oppression and exclusion. Overall, it should be said that there are few studies about female refugees in literature and therefore it is important to focus on this field.
In the study, the acculturation problems experienced by Syrian female refugees will be discussed by gender. In this process, the migration policies of the host country and the general social situations of immigrants during the acculturation process will also be taken into consideration. Therefore, qualitative researches, statistical datas and migration reports in Turkish literature were examined. After these researches, this study aimed to contribute to the literature by conducting a future-oriented sociological projection study on the integration of female refugees in Turkey.
This study is methodologically an academic review study. Firstly, the study examined statistical data on female immigrants. Revealed an overview about the situation of Syrian female refugees who live in Turkey. Various qualitative studies in literature were examined and seven categories from these qualitative studies were obtained by comparing data to each other. These categories are language barrier, health problems, economic problems, adaptation problems, access to health services, education problems, need for psychological support. These problems have been examined through the studies in the literature. The results have helped to analyze the past and make predictions for the future.
The study consists of five parts which are abstract, introduction, literature review, main text, and conclusion section. In the first part a presentation was prepared, and the attention was drawn to international migration and female immigrants. This section provides an overview of the concept of migration. In the second part, the concepts are explained in depth and these explanations are supported by the literature. This part draws attention to the main subject of the study and examines the main subject thoroughly. Also, the part consists of the methodology of the study. The third part of the study is the most important of the whole study as the study aims to be a projection study. This section includes literature review and promotion. Researches in the field of immigration in national literature have been examined. This section was created by taking the main issue areas and the concept of female immigrant mentioned in the second section into account. In the main text, the conceptual and theoretical framework of the study has been revealed. The conceptual framework has been categorized and examined together with the studies in the literature. During the creation of this part, the concepts used in this study were examined by using the literature. Finally, the view of study is designed by using gender inequality and its appearance in social life. The study investigates the migration using gender perspective and it is aimed to gain an understanding of these concepts from a gender perspective. At the end, results gained from the literature were collected in the conclusion and predictions were made for the future.
Overview of Concepts and Theoretical Framework
The main text of the study was interpreted on four themes. Before this interpretation, it is necessary to repeat the concepts. In general definition, the concept of international migration includes two different countries and migrants as we mentioned the previous chapters. International migration has increased with the development of intermediary factors such as international communication, transportation, and the rising of globalization. Meanwhile there were 84,460,125 global migrants in 1970, this number came to 271,642,105 in 2019 (IOM 2020, p.9), also this rising has continued in recent days. As we mentioned before, immigrants are affected by international migration phenomenon in various categories such as language barrier, health problems, economic problems, acculturation problems, access to health services, education problems and the need for psychosocial support.
The main point of this study is being a “female immigrant”. According to IOM data in 2015, 48% of the immigrants in the world population are women (IOM, 2020, p.10). However, when the literature is examined, it is possible to say that immigration policies are created with a male-perspective. Under these conditions, female immigrants experience a double disadvantage given that they are both an immigrant and a woman.
When Syrians are analyzed as a migration wave in Turkey, the importance of the immigration literature in Turkey has been increased with the movement of the first large group in 2011. Turkey’s complicated immigration policy has affected the immigrant groups. Turkey tried to administer different policies about Syrian immigrants. Since the 1974 Geneva Convention, immigrants from outside of Europe are not recognized as refugees. As asylum seeking represents a temporary status, it does not cover the current migration movement. Therefore, Turkey creates a “temporary protection” status. The government attempted to safeguard this group because the group was deprived many rights legally. However, this situation observed in different ways both in social and political life (Uzun, 2015, p. 113-118).
This outlook appears in the theoretical framework of the study; According to Esser, the concept of integration is handled in 2 ways. The first one is called “political integration” which includes the totality of the rights and freedoms provided by the receiving country for immigrants. To give a better explanation about political integration, it would be useful to examine Castles and Miller’s “Models of Citizenship Acquisition and Nation-State Attachment”. This model has summed up the attitudes of the receiving country towards immigration within 4 models. These can be listed as, empire model, ethnic model, republican model, model based on multiculturalism (Kofman, Raghuram, Sales, & Phizacklea, 2000, p. 96-99). Among these models, migration policy in Turkey is closer to the ethnic model and is aimed at protecting the nation-state concept. The admission of immigrants to the country within the ethnic model includes these requests; long-term life in the country of immigration, a certain knowledge of language, therefore a certain degree of assimilation and adaptation to the new culture (Dedeoğlu & Ekiz Gökmen, 2011, p. 29). At this point, it can be said that Syrian immigrants have some disadvantage in the political area.
Another important concept here is “acculturation”. This concept is defined as the totality of changes when two cultures come together (Şahin, 2010, p. 106-108). The acculturation can be explained by social integration. Social integration can be described with Berry’s immigration model. This model states four different acculturation patterns that emerge in the immigrated society. These are segregation, assimilation, multiple integration, and marginalization. Mostly segregation and assimilation can be observed in the acculturation. The model we used in the study is segregation and segre living desire basically includes the immigrant group’s rejection of the major culture and it includes motivation to continue their life practices with their small groups of immigrants. Assimilation is the type of acculturation where adaptation to the new culture is dominant.
In Turkish literature there are a lot of qualitative study on acculturation and immigration. When these studies are examined, the problems experienced in the country of immigration -especially for female immigrants are collected in four areas. These are language barrier, employment problems, health problem and acculturation problems.
Literature Review
The main purpose of this study is providing an overview of the academy with the studies in literature and to provide a projection for future studies in this field. On this purpose, 2020 migration report which is created by Directorate General of Migration Management (DGMM) was examined and provided general data related to Syrian refugees who live in Turkey. In the 2020 report, the total Syrian immigrant population is stated as 3,665,946. While some of the immigrants still live in temporary accommodation centers (1.5%), the large majority of them lives in cities (98.5%). As it can be seen from this, the majority of the immigrant population lives in the city and they take part of social life. The rate of Syrian population who lives in Turkey was determined 4.38% by DGMM. It is an undeniable fact that the current situation will cause various problems in the acculturation process (Mülteciler Derneği, 2021, 10th of April).
Forced migration is having to act as a result of political and social phenomena such as natural disasters, war, unemployment and political conflict in displacement process. The most important stage of this process is that the forced migration movement occurs without the consent of the individual. Syrian migration in Turkey; It has entered to the literature since 2011, when the first mass displacements were experienced. But that year, Turkey didn’t have a good adequate policy about refugees and thus, the government took a lot of temporary precautions and unstable structure of this movement affected Turkey in social, economic, political, and cultural ways.
This process harmed not only Turkey, but immigrants were also very affected by it. If we look at the statistics on this subject, according to the gender distribution table which is published by the Immigration Administration; While Syrian men constitute 53.8% of the total Syrian population, the rate of Syrian women was determined as 46.2%. The gender distribution of Syrian immigrants seems to be balanced. At this point, it should not be forgotten that the problems of female immigrants will differ from those of male immigrants. In addition, the ways in which female migrants and male migrants are affected by the phenomenon of migration are different, so the studies should be shaped accordingly (Mülteciler Derneği, 2021, 10th of April).
Especially when we consider the problems of Syrian female immigrants as forced migrants in the country of migration, the prominent issues are health problems, language barrier, economic problems, and acculturation problems. Among these studies, the main claim of Buz’s (2007 p.41) study “Migrant Women” is that women are more affected than other migrants by their migration and asylum situation. The aim of this study is to make women more visible in the phenomenon of migration. The position of female immigrants in the migration phenomenon is supported by numerical data. This study is a critique of migration studies that see the concept of femininity in the literature as an additional part of the concept of migration. However, it was emphasized that this perspective is not the right view in this period of excessive and complicated migration movements. In the last part of the study, solutions were proposed for female immigrants within the frame of feminist social works.
First, as one of the issues mentioned above, the literature of the studies in the field of health has been reviewed. It has been noted in literature that the health (psychological, physical, especially sexual) phenomenon of Syrian female immigrants is particularly concentrated on studies conducted about female immigrants. At this point, issues such as family planning, sexually transmitted disease, maternity situations were considered as important. On the other hand, the existence of so many studies which focus on the sexual health of female immigrants is an issue that needs to be addressed. In this case, the source of the main motivation for working on women’s sexual health is important; One of them may be the creation of a contraceptive perspective and disseminating it by adding it to the literature, and the other may be drawing attention to the intensity of harm in this area. It is an important question mark for studies in this field.
As the second mentioned issue, there are various studies in literature about the language barrier. These studies are focused on not knowing the language, not being able to learn and not using the language actively. Bakioğlu, Artar and İzmir (2018, p.25-27) had conducted a study using the qualitative research method. This study carried out numerous interviews with Syrian and Turkish individuals. The social relations subtitle of the study created within the framework of these interviews included the fact that through their own discourses, Syrian women and children did not even leave the neighborhood. It was emphasized that the most important factor in this situation is language. The fact women think that they cannot get along with anyone even if they go out of the neighborhood has caused a socially isolated lifestyle and has turned into a situation that confines women to their neighborhood. They emphasized that the effect of language problem on women takes the form of isolation from social life and a lonely life practice. Language problem is not a problem that only affects women. While men are concerned with the livelihood of the house due to their gender roles, they are also included in the social area. Their involvement in employment life creates a space for them to learn the language, but learning Turkish is not easy for Arabs.
The economic problems, especially unemployment problem is an issue that can be handled in two dimensions. One of them is, economic effects of refugees’ presence in the receiving country market and employment problems of refugees. The impact of refugees on the economic life in the market was examined in the article of Çetin (2016, p.1004-1011) in the sample of Adana-Mersin province. In this article, the tensions created by the increasing employment status of refugees as well as refugees having their own workplaces were mentioned. Economic integration barriers can be defined as work permit, unemployment, low wages, and wages extortion. Work permit is primary among these obstacles. If we look at the problems experienced in this perspective, most of the work permits of refugees consist of unqualified positions. There are also professional individuals who apply for unqualified positions. Turkey has signed three agreements at the international level on behalf of refugees, therefore prevented unregistered employment and employment permit. These agreements can be listed as the “Equal Pay Convention no. 100” dated 1951, the “Human Resources Development Convention no. 142” dated 1975, and the “Discrimination -Work and Professional- Convention no.111” dated 1958 (Türkiye’nin İmzaladığı ILO Sözleşmeleri, 2015, 18th of June). In addition to three international conventions, changes have been made in the national arena. Also, it should be considered that the Syrian workforce may pose an opportunity and threat in economic terms. Studies are carried out to ensure these policies are implemented in a healthy and controlled manner. If the policies implemented in this sense are not performed properly, problems will arise from unregistered employment. These can be inclusion of refugees in the areas that do not require qualification in markets as informal workforce, not paying the promised wage, paying the wage much later than the specified date. Also, it is observed in many countries that refugees and immigrants work in dirty-dangerous-demeaning conditions, which are called “3-D works”, (Aygül, 2018, p.74-75) and their labor is more open to exploitation under these conditions. Besides, the wage gap between local and refugee workers is closing in jobs that require qualification. Lastly, female and children refugees or immigrants are more exposed to labor exploitation. Moreover, excessive misuse and violence are also important problems that refugees and immigrants face.
As the last-mentioned issue, there are a lot of studies about the acculturation problems. Şahin (2010, p.106-108) and Sözen’s (2018, p.38-40) articles have been useful of understanding the integration processes of immigrants. As these articles highlight, the concept of integration exists in two forms: political and social integration. Political integration can be explained by Castles and Miller’s models of citizenship action and loyalty to the nation-state. Social integration can be explained by Berry’s immigration model. This model is divided into four social integration. These are called segregation, assimilation, adaptation, and marginalization. In this context, although segregation and assimilation are generally observed, acculturation should not be considered as one-dimensional.
In this part of the study, we discussed female immigrants and their problem areas together. Turkey has been located in a large, forced migration wave since 2011. Before the movement, a lot of social scientist was working on explaining this movement and its future but recently this topic has become more valuable. Some of the studies on female immigrants in the literature can be listed as; Ünlütürk Ulutaş and Kalfa (2009, p.14-15) in which attention was attracted to the phenomenon of feminization of migration, Barın (2015, p.17-25) which examined the problems the Syrian female immigrants has been exposed to in Syrian camps and out of the Syrian camps, in Colvin and Munz’s (2020, p.156-158) study which was conducted with 11 female refugees who live in Utah, USA. Although the majority of the immigrant group in the region consists of women and children, the fact that there are few studies focused on women was emphasized. To conclude, based on the inferences made from literature, two main issues are discussed in the study. The first is that the phenomenon of immigration has a gender-based distinction. This distinction causes female migrants to be exposed to discrimination more, which based on the fact that their migration theories are formed with a male-dominated perspective. On the other hand, acculturation should be handled in two ways. The first is the political perspective, which includes the policies and relations of the sending and receiving countries. The second includes the social integration processes of migrants in the country of migration. In the study, Syrian female immigrants social integration in Turkey were examined. By looking into the articles, statistical data and studies which are included in the bibliography list, the study is focused to make a future-oriented sociological projection study and to contribute to the literature.
In the literature mentioned in previous chapters, the problem areas experienced by immigrant women in Turkey are explained by deeply and examined in this part of the study. These problem areas can be registered as language barrier, employment problems, health problems and acculturation problems.
Language Barrier
The first problem in these determined problem areas is language barrier. It should be said that there are enough qualitative and quantitative studies in the literature on the language barrier. When these studies are examined, immigrants experience the language barrier in the form of not knowing a language, not being able to learn a language and not being able to use the language effectively. Language is an important area that directly affects immigrants during the migration process. Also, language has appearances in many areas such as communication, cultural transfer, intercultural interaction, socialization, and cultural learning. Based on this, language is both a precondition and a result of many adaptation processes. Learning a language is also learning the local culture. If somebody wants to feel comfortable in any culture, he/she must learn the language and social values of that culture and accept its features (Özbent, 2008, p.16). On the other hand, Syrian refugees has their cultural knowledge, and that knowledge has gender roles that effects women negative way. Women stay at the home because of gender roles, and they experience the double-negative situation. In this process, the social life’s of women is limited to families who immigrate together and families who settle in the immediate area. In this process, women are not taking a step for language learning and they are not in daily life practices and employment; It effected women to be dependent on someone who can speak the language in their daily life. Freedom for the female immigrants is at a restrictive point. Due to the fact that the speakers of the language are mostly men, the women are faced with the reconstruction of their gender roles.
Three themes have been reached as the output of the qualitative studies examined. The first theme of these is the “desire to live in segre”. Many studies have emphasized that Syrian women and children do not even go out of the neighborhood and language is the most important factor in this situation. The second theme which was obtained is “isolated life practices”. In the studies, women’s thinking that they cannot get along with anyone even if they go out of the neighborhood has caused a socially isolated lifestyle and has turned into a situation that enclose women to their local environment. The third theme is “muteness in the public sphere”, which affects all immigrant groups. This theme is not a problem that only affects women. While men are interested in the livelihood of the house, they are also involved in the social sphere. Their involvement in working life creates an area for them to learn the language but their low visibility in the public sphere is challenging throughout the learning process.
As a result of these themes, it can be said that immigrants are compulsory to small living spaces and spend their socialization practices here. In addition to that, Turkey’s perspective about refugees and immigrants is an ethnic view. This affects the “we and the others” distinction between local and immigrant population. Although it has little expression in the literature, the main situation has turned into a circulation. Therefore, the language barrier should be taken into computation while handling the adaptation problem. And researches, academic studies, and papers in the field should be expanded to include gender roles.
Employment Problems
The second problem area of these is employment problems. It can be said that there are not enough studies about employment problems in the literature. When the existing studies are examined, employment problems are discussed in two ways. The first is “the economic effects of the refugees’ existence in the markets” and the second is “the employment problems of the refugees”.
First factor is “the economic impact of refugees’ existence in the markets”. This factor and Turkey’s migration policy are related to each other directly. As we mentioned before Turkey has an ethnic immigration policy. This policy of immigrants embraced by the citizens. Because of that, most citizens do not have an inclusive immigration understanding. Besides, Turkey has a “developing country” economy. This is creating a social economic class within the society, and also causes employment of local people in some jobs that do not require qualifications. Also, immigrants being included in the employment market as cheap labor causes an increase on conflict between especially local people who works in unqualified jobs and immigrants.
Further “employment problems of refugees” are, lack of work permit, unemployment, low wages, and wage extortion. The basis of these arguments is the work permit. Because most immigrants do not have a legal status in Turkey. This situation directly affects the economic problems of the immigrants. Turkey has made some agreements and modifications at national and international areas for the prevention of economic problems. However, the disability to have a legal status and to not benefit from the rights legally causes immigrants to be at an impasse in this subject. Generally, immigrant’s work permits consist of unskilled positions. The fact that there are qualified people applying for unqualified positions shows us the negation of the situation.
The studies show us, women work in two main sectors in the field of employment, these are maintenance services and prostitution. These sectors are more open to labor exploitation. (Ünlütürk Ulutaş & Kalfa, 2009, p.16). In conclusion, in a lot of countries, refugee and migrant women and children are more exposed to labor exploitation and their labor is more open to exploitation. Turkey based researches, academic studies, and papers of the literature are enough to provide a general overview of the employment problems. Aside from the studies in the literature on the economic problems of immigrants, the new studies about the subject should be renovated based on gender roles.
Health Problems
Health problems are the third subject of these problem areas. Health problems have a great range in the literature. Health can be analyzed in three parts. The first is physical health and access to health services, the second is psychological health, and the third is sexual health.
First, access to physical health and access to health services. This area has been also worked on extensively in the literature. There are also specialized studies that examine femininity perspective and gender roles problems. Health problems experienced in the literature are generally in psychological and gynecological areas. The problems experienced by immigrants in health services are caused by economic reasons and lack of social insurance. Language problems are also an important factor for health problems.
Psychological health too has been worked on extensively in the literature about female immigrants . Two main factors affecting the psychological health of immigrants are listed in the literature as the duration of immigration and methods used in migration process. Also, in the literature it is indicated that, immigration increases the probability of higher levels of anxiety and anxiety-related disorders, depression, and suicidal thoughts, together with a decreased sense of belonging (Aksu & Sevil, 2010, p. 135-136).
Sexual health as the last part. The main reason why the literature makes this distinction and created the title of sexual health is that female immigrants mostly employed in care services and prostitution like we mentioned before in economic problems part. This case makes “sexual health problems” more important. Studies developed by the psychologists pay attention to the fact that, international migrants give more births in order to strengthen their origin which is based on the reasoning “survival of the origin”. Immigrant sexual health is an important subject for organizing “immigrants birth control”. From this point of view, it is important to have a sexual health and access to sexual health for female immigrants. As a result, scientific history argues on that health problems and gender roles are in interaction.
Acculturation Problems
Acculturation problems were examined as the last problem area. While creating this part, the “acculturation” concept has been preferred in order to avoid any conceptual errors. By general definition, the concept of acculturation is a situation experienced when two or more cultures come to face to face. The situation can bring either harmony or contrast.
It can be understood from the analysis of the problems in the literature review and the main part of the study, acculturation problems have the quality to draw a basic framework for adaptation problems. Adaptation problems that originate as a result of the confrontation of two communities are seen in various ways. As mentioned in the theoretical framework of the study, Berry’s migration theory categorizes this acculturation types in four styles. Assimilation and segregation are more common than other forms of adaptation. Also “multi-integration” is the ability of adapting to both cultures, or “marginalized” can be described as rejecting both cultures. Another important value of the process is the approach of the communities to “foreigners”. Immigration has classified these countries as receiving countries and origin countries due to the perception of “foreigners”. And it analyzed them using this method.
Almost every study in the literature contains a bit of an acculturation problem. This is related to the acculturation being inclusive and generalizable. Although every study in the literature contains a bit of this concept, most of the studies do not have gender sensitivity. This decreases the visibility of women and even makes their migration motivations invisible. For instance, women’s motivation of migration can be handled depending on the man’s motivation with a male-dominated migration analysis. For this reason, gender sensitive studies have gained more importance in feminist perspective.
Conclusion
Firstly, it should be marked that a sociological study will have three different paradigms. The first of this paradigm is structural functionalism, which is leaded by Durkheim . According to the paradigm, structures in the society continued to exist since they have a function in society and the paradigm formed various sociological phenomena in this way. The second paradigm claim that the structures and concepts mentioned in structural functionalism are determined by capitalists. This paradigm is pioneered by Marx. The paradigm argues that people who have not power in the capitalist system can change the system by uprising. The third paradigm accepts the structure’s functionality in the society. On the other hand, the paradigm is not far from the idea of capitalist system controlled the society with ideological and economic pressure mechanisms. Leading name of the paradigm is Weber. All three approaches are based on idealized types of society. Therefore, when explaining the immigration concept, it would be more convenient not connecting it to only one paradigm, but also, we should look at this concept with modern and multi-functional theories (Collective, 2018, p. 44-64).
The concept of acculturation arises as one of the main concepts of the study. It should be considered that different cultures have different social practices, different forms of domination, conflicts, and adaptation processes while discussing this concept. Therefore, it will be possible to say that the acculturation of immigrants is seen in many forms. These forms have been classified by Berry and basically four acculturation practices have been obtained. The study used “segregation” concept for explaining the practices of immigrants lives.
In addition, the concept of political integration is used in this study. Political integration includes social institution reflections of acculturation. These models affect the rights, status, and responsibilities of immigrants under the policies of receiving countries. The study used “ethnic model” to explain the politic integration. The ethnic model has been explained by Castles and Miller. The model expresses a local and national perspective. Immigration rights have also been developed within this framework. Ethnic model is an explanation of political integration and the model has analyzed immigrants’ citizenship acquisition and attachment to the nation state. In this context, it can be said that there is a segregation observed on Syrian immigrants a current migrant group. Considering the fact that ethnic model affects the government policy and daily life practices, we can say that it activates this segregation. As a result of these, immigrants have low visibility in the public area, and they also have a segre life practices in their integration process.
Looking at the concepts in general, the study wants to examine these concepts with a feminist perspective, with this perspective the study examined gender-based differentiation. One of the most important reasons for this study to be based on gender differentiation is, even if women is a significant part of the immigrant population today, it is still a weak point in the literature. It is necessary to highlight the changes that the concept of gender has undergone in the context of feminism. In the origin of the first feminist movement, liberal feminism emphasized the equality in the public sphere and equal sharing of the rights, but this was not implemented. It is the first appearance of the “gender roles” concept. Radical feminism emphasizes the family and cultural elements. This shows us the importance of gender roles. Another point here is that gender roles differ in the two cultures (Syrian- Turkish) that have come across as a result of migration. Accordingly, the study was taken as “differentiation on the gender area” without taking any specific feminist theory.
It should be marked that when examining the concept of migration in a historical context, it is difficult to change the way this concept is perceived. The viewpoints that adopted by the social institutions and individuals are settled firmly in the concept. In this process, different attitudes will be observed in social practices. These attitudes will appear for Syrian individuals in various forms. The importance of the study is the effort to present analysis to the future by examining the field activities in the past.
In the conclusion part of the study, various solution suggestions have been developed in order to provide a right migration management. The suggestions are listed below, however, there is a long process for these suggestions be effective in social life. For this reason, small steps in the relevant fields are also functional.
1. The four main areas (language barrier, health problems, economic problems, acculturation problems) obtained while creating the study should be detailed and the findings should be transmitted to the political authorities.
2. Immigrants -especially female immigrants- ability to access to psychological, social, and sexual health should be facilitated and immigrant health centers should be expanded.
3. Developing policies to include immigrants -especially female immigrants- in the field of employment. Government should provide a support for employers and protect female immigrant workers and their rights.
4. Expanding current courses to handle the language problems of immigrants- especially female immigrants-.
5. Increase trainings to raise awareness of individuals and corporations that work with immigrants in the society in order to develop gender sensitive migration studies.
6. Expanding the studies created with a feminist perspective studies in the literature.
Neslihan Gürler – TUIC ACADEMY
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