EU greenlights €3 billion for Syrian refugees in Turkey
March 14, 2018
The EU has unlocked €3 billion ($3.7 billion) for projects to help Syrian refugees in Turkey in a second payment from the 2016 migration deal. More than a million refugees have already benefited from the funds.
Image: Reuters/Kai Pfaffenbach
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The European Commission (EC) said Wednesday an additional €3 billion would be raised for Syrian refugees in Turkey.
"Our cooperation with Turkey is key to address common challenges," the EU's top migration official Dimitris Avramopoulos told a news conference, referring to the various difficulties facing the EU in its dealings with Ankara.
"Unnecessary escalations can and should be avoided," Avramopoulos said.
The money is to be used to help some 3.5 million Syrian refugees in Turkey as part of the controversial 2016 EU-Turkey migration deal. The EU and member states provided €3 billion in the first tranche covering 2016 and 2017.
In approving the second tranche, the EC was acting on a move that was endorsed several weeks ago. Avramopoulos said it was up to EU member states to fund the second tranche.
"It makes sense we follow the same division as before, with the EU budget mobilizing €1 billion and the member states delivering the other €2 billion euros," he said.
EU funding has so far provided 500,000 children with education and provided cash transfers to 1.2 million refugees.
The European policy has helped "the most vulnerable refugees and their host communities in Turkey, thus reducing migratory pressures," said Johannes Hahn, EU Commissioner for European Neighborhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations.
The EU signed a migration deal with Turkey in 2016 to reduce the flow of irregular migration as Europe experienced an influx of more than 1 million refugees.
In exchange for aid, Turkey agreed to clamp down on boat crossings to EU member Greece and take back migrants, including refugees.
The deal is credited with reducing migration numbers into the EU, but the policy has come under criticism from human rights organizations.
Two other planks of the migration deal – speeding up Turkey's EU accession process and visa-free travel to the bloc for Turkish citizens – have been stalled over human rights concerns in the wake of the July 2016 failed coup attempt.
Small hands, big profits: Syrian child labor in Turkey
Hard work instead of study: In Turkey there are thousands of Syrian refugee children who aren’t going to school. Many of them work 12-hour days, even though child labor is banned. A visit to a tailor’s workshop.
Image: DW/J. Hahn
Work piling up
Khalil is 13-years old and comes from Damascus. He works five days a week in this tailor’s workshop in the basement of a residential house in the working-class Istanbul district of Bagcilar. In this area there are sewing rooms like this one in almost every street. And there are almost always children like Khalil working in them.
Image: DW/J. Hahn
Child colleagues
The sewing machines rattle practically non-stop. Four of the 15 or so people working in this tailor’s shop are children, all from Syria. The Turkish textile industry is one of the trades in which a lot of people work illegally. Many are underage children who are taken on as cheap labor, with no papers and no social security.
Image: DW/J. Hahn
Yearning for school
"I don’t think about the future," says 13-year-old Khalil, who’s sorting bits of cotton fabric. A young woman is sewing them into women’s panties. Sorting, cutting, sewing — the two are a practiced team. Back home in Syria, Khalil was in third grade; then the war came, they fled, and he hasn’t been back to school since.
Image: DW/J. Hahn
Exploiting or helping?
Child labor is forbidden in Turkey. Anyone who employs children under the age of 15 is open to prosecution. The owner of this tailor’s shop knows this, which is why he wants to remain anonymous. "I give the children work so they don’t have to beg. I know it’s forbidden, but on the other hand I’m helping families that wouldn’t have enough to survive otherwise," he says.
Image: DW/J. Hahn
"I hope I can go home"
Musa is also 13. Like many people in this tailor’s workshop, he comes from the province of Afrin in northern Syria, which has a majority Kurdish population. What does he do when he’s not working? "Play football," he says. "I hope there will soon be peace in Syria and we’ll be able to go back home. Then I want to study there and become a doctor."
Image: DW/J. Hahn
Cheap is the priority
Thousands of women’s panties are sewn and packed here every day, in various colors, patterns and sizes. They’re sold in bazaars for a few Turkish lira apiece. The aim is to undercut the Chinese competition. The children here are paid a rate of less than 50 euro cents ($0.60) an hour. Adults earn about twice that.
Image: DW/J. Hahn
A 12-hour day
Aras is 11 and has been working here for four months. Her mother is pregnant; her father has a job of his own in a textile factory. Aras’ day begins at 8 a.m. and often doesn’t finish until 8 p.m. She’s allowed two breaks a day. Aras earns 700 Turkish lira a month — around 153 euros.
Image: DW/J. Hahn
Studying is a luxury
Because she works Monday to Friday, Aras can’t go to an ordinary public school. She attends classes at a Syrian aid organization at the weekend, so that at least she’s learning something. Math, Arabic and Turkish are on the curriculum. The teachers themselves are refugees from the war in Syria.
Image: DW/J. Hahn
Lessons are time out
More than 70 children aged between four and 18 attend the little Syrian school each day. Sometimes the teachers visit families at home and persuade the parents to send their children to lessons, at least a few days a week, to give them a stab at a better future, and to give them a chance — for a while — to be what they are: children.
