Syrian refugees have dreams

At a time when the number of racist attacks targeting Syrian refugees in Turkey is on the rise, the United Metalworkers' Union (Birleşik Metal İş Sendikası) issued a report called "Syrian Refugee Labor." We have thus seen once again how most of the three million Syrian refugees are living under difficult conditions here.

Eight academics from various universities drafted the report. Face to face interviews were conducted with both Turkish and Syrian workers in the textile sector. The result is striking but not unexpected, because we knew that Syrian workers were unregistered and highly underpaid. 

The report said 99.6 percent of male Syrian workers and 100 percent of female Syrian workers were unregistered. As an example of the pay gap between Syrian and Turkish workers, the average pay of Syrian women workers corresponds to only half of the average Turkish male worker's pay.

Another striking find is that a high majority of Turkish workers (73 percent of men and 60 percent of women) believe that Syrians have caused a drop in their salary. The rate of those who think Syrian workers should not be allowed to work is 66 percent. 

Even this data alone gives clues of society's negative view of Syrian refugees.

Labor Minister Mehmet Müezzinoğlu voiced a confession the other day on TV. He first called for people to avoid "provocative expressions" against Syrian immigrants. Then he said the following: "We have lost many qualified Syrian workers because we lost time in the acceptance of documents of professions such as doctors and engineers. We lost them to places like Germany. We were late in drawing a strategic road map."

Turkey has indeed been very late not only in terms of making adjustments for the qualified work force,...