A black future awaits Syrian youth in Turkey

The rise in the number of Syrians corresponds to Ankara's ignoring a plan that guarantees their rights.

Syrians face marginalization inside Turkey

The emergence of signs of restlessness on the part of the Turkish authorities about the presence of Syrian refugees on its lands raises questions about what awaits these people, especially young people, given their large number, as their future appears not to be optimistic, given that the government in Ankara has not approved any plan to secure their rights, such as education and health.

With the Turkish authorities beginning to feel concerned about the stability of the Syrians in Turkey, the question about the future of these people, especially the young people, who obviously will face a dark future, appears on the surface.

Turkey, which welcomed Syrian refugees, especially after signing an agreement on them with the European Union in March 2016, has not developed plans capable of securing their future, especially in light of the uneducated half of the Syrian youth fleeing the horrific war in their country.

The authorities in Ankara recently showed fear and concern that the Syrians have already begun to settle in the country in light of the continuing war in Syria, an unjustified fear, according to observers.

Black future

Alexandra de Kramer: Turkey does not guarantee a bright future for its youth, let alone Syrians

According to last November statistics issued by the Refugee Association, 3.7 million Syrians are staying in Turkey, and more than 2.6 million of them are under the age of 30, and more than a million of them are under the age of ten, and they came to life after the outbreak of the conflict for the first time after the large-scale protests against President Bashar al-Assad.

Considering that Turkey has the largest number of young refugees in the world, most of them are Syrians, the question remains: What future for these young people?

"The answer is simple, the future that awaits them is a dark future," said Alexandra de Kramer, a journalist based in Istanbul.

“The reality is that Turkey cannot guarantee a bright future for its youth, let alone refugee youth,” explains de Kramer, who worked as a Middle East correspondent for Milliyet on the Arab Spring from Beirut, and whose work ranges from current affairs to cultural issues. The government’s adoption leaves a legacy of large debts and dysfunctional institutions, as is evident from its handling of the current economic crisis.”

Indeed, young Turks are leaving the country in droves. In 2019, 330,000 Turks immigrated abroad, half of whom were under the age of 30, and those who remained face the third-highest unemployment rate in 32 European countries, according to August statistics from Eurostat.

Turkey's Youth Unemployment Program estimated that more than 11 million people aged 15-34 were unemployed in November, and in the third quarter of 2021, the official youth unemployment rate was 22 percent.

That is why 76 percent of young people said they want to leave Turkey for a better future, according to a survey conducted by McConsultancy in 2020.

A similar fate awaits young Syrians who managed to escape the war but are traumatized by being part of a refugee group and, accordingly, unable to access basic human necessities such as housing, education and financial security.

Education and vaccination

The authorities’ welcoming words for refugees have not matched their actions. The government of Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party has failed to provide a unified policy for Syrian refugees.

The words of the Turkish authorities welcoming refugees have not matched their actions so far. The government, run by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Justice and Development Party, failed to provide a unified policy for Syrian refugees, and this was evident in February, when the country's vaccination program failed to include Syrian refugee segment.

The provision of education was a major problem, aided by the agreement concluded in 2016 between the European Union and Turkey, in which the European Union pledged 6 billion euros, of which 2.4 billion euros was spent on education and housing, but all this did not meet the needs of refugees. .

The Ministry of Education has ordered methodological changes to provide a more comprehensive educational framework, but the sheer scale of the task makes its implementation extremely complex.

“First of all, Turkey’s central education system does not allow individual schools to adapt education to the needs of Syrian students, and secondly, there are not enough qualified teachers to teach a curriculum in Turkish and Arabic,” De Kramer said.

The Education Reform Initiative confirmed that only half of registered Syrian children attend school, and only 26 percent of those aged 14-17 are enrolled in school.

Half of the Syrians in Turkey have not gone to school or are illiterate.

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, more than 70 percent of Syrian refugees live in poverty, and it is likely that those children who do not go to school help their families through work, almost all of which are illegal activities.

The depreciation of the Turkish lira has caused economic congestion across the country and paved the way for the emergence of anti-Syrian sentiment, and political parties have heightened the tone of hostility by opposing the presence of refugees.

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In November, three Syrians between the ages of 17 and 21 went to work in Izmir and were burned to death in their sleep. Turkish human rights groups said that the attack was based on xenophobia, and in the summer of 2020, six children in the city of Hatay were subjected to a racist attack and were beaten so severely that they They needed hospital treatment, and there is another incident in 2019, in which a 9-year-old Syrian boy from Kocaeli city hanged himself for being discriminated against in the classroom.

The Child Protection and Rights platform found that more than half of Turkish parents interviewed did not agree that their children should have Syrian friends, and there are no public opinion campaigns to help change that opinion.

It is worrying for Turks that the number of young Syrians is growing rapidly. A 2019 report from the German political establishment Konrad Adenauer Stiftung estimated that nearly 500 Syrian children are born in Turkey every day, and neither Syria nor Turkey grants citizenship to these newborns, which It denies them national identity cards, and they are undoubtedly the biggest victims of the status quo.

There are many challenges that Turkey faces when it comes to the Syrian refugees it hosts, but it is the young group of Syrian refugees who need the most attention at this point.

The Turkish government is trying to convince the Turks that the Syrians will return to their country, but what does the idea of ​​returning home mean to these children? Even if the war ends, when will it be safe for them to return?

There are reports of some refugees returning to Syria, who have been detained, interrogated, tortured and sexually abused by Assad's security forces.

De Kramer believes that "what awaits young refugees in Syria is food shortages, persecution and forced conscription. Compared to these possibilities, Turkey is a much more attractive offer, but can't Turkey provide better options?"(Alexandra de Kramer)