MIGRATION TO TURKEY IN GENERAL
What is Migrant/Migration?
The term migrant means "a person who lives outside of the country where he/she was born and has some significant social ties to this second country."
Who is Migrant Worker?
A migrant is a "person who works in a country of which he or she is not a national."
Migrants does not refer to refugees, displaced or others who are forced or compelled to leave their homes.
The difference between migrants and refugees is that, migrants are people who make choices about when to leave and where to go, even though these choices are sometimes extremely constrained.
ACCORDING TO UN FOLLOWING PERSONS ARE CONSIDERED AS MIGRANTS:
a) Persons who live in a country where he/she was not national and also is not subject to the legal protection of another State;
b) Persons who lives in a host country but are not recognized as refugee, naturalised person or of similar status;
Migration means the crossing of the boundary of a country for a certain period of time which includes the movement of refugees, displaced persons, uprooted people as well as economic migrants.
Internal migration means a move from one area (a province, district or municipality) to another within ONE country.
International migration means a territorial relocation of people between countries.
Two taypes of relocation can be excluded from this broad definition:
First, a territorial movement which does not lead to any change in ties of social membership, such as tourism;
Second, a relocation where the individuals concerned are exactly passive objects rather than active agents of the movement, such as organised transfer of refugees from states of origins to a safe haven.
The migration can be differentiated according to the motives (economic, family reunion, refugees) or legal status (irregular migration, controlled emigration/immigration, free emigration/immigration) of those concerned.
International Migrants Categorization
. Temporary Labour Migrants (Guest workers or Overseas Contract Workers)
These are the people migrating for a limited period of time for employment and send money home.
. Skilled and Business Migrants
Professionals like managers, executives, technicians or similar, who move within the internal labour markets of trans-national corporations and international organisations, or those who seek employment through international labour markets for scarce skills.
Irregular migrants (or undocumented / illegal migrants):
People who, without the necessary documents and permits, enter a country, usually in search of employment.
Forced migration:
People who are forced to move due to external factors, such as environmental catastrophes or development projects.
The migrants of family reunion / family reunification:
Many countries introduce in principle the right to family reunion for legal migrants. Some other countries, deny the right to family reunion.
Return migrants:
People returning to their countries of origin after living a period in another country.
Migration plays an important role in the erosion of traditional boundaries between languages, cultures, ethnic group, and nation-states. Migration is not just a single act of crossing a border, but rather a lifelong process that affects all aspects of the lives of those involved.
MIGRATION TO TURKEY
Traditionally, Turkey is known as a country of emigration. Thousands of Turkish nationals, starting from the early 1960s, migrated to western European countries, particularly West Germany. This has continued till today through family reunification schemes and the asylum track.
In terms of irregular migrants from Asian countries such as Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Iraq, Iran, and Pakistan, Turkey became, in recent times, a transit country to the European Union. Turkey, with a population of 80 million, has become a destination for irregular migrants from former Soviet Bloc countries, and a magnet for illegal immigrants.
The most of the people in Turkey are regarded as refugees, and are resettled to third countries such as Canada and the United States by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Starting from 1990s, this pattern has changed to some extent, as increasing numbers of asylum seekers started to arrive from Iran and Iraq, as well as other developing nations. A massive influx of almost half a million mostly Kurdish refugees from Iraq in 1988 and 1991 has been experienced, as well as mass influxes of Albanians, Bosnian Muslims, Pomaks (Bulgarian-speaking Muslims), and Turks in 1989, 1992-1995, and 1999.
TURKEY: A COUNTRY OF ASYLUM
Turkey, on the other hand, became a country of asylum. Around 100,000 Jews from German-occupied Europe made Turkey their country of first asylum. Jews who were under repression in different parts of occupied Europe, found asylum in Turkey which in the end resulted in their resettlement, mostly in Palestine and subsequently in newly established State of Israel.
Moreover, during the course of World War II, many people from the Nazi-occupied Balkans also sought refuge in Turkey, including Muslims and ethnic Turks from Bulgaria, Greeks from the Aegean, and Italians from the Dodecanese Islands.
MIGRATION FROM TURKEY
Large amount of Turkish labor emigration to Europe began with an agreement signed by the Turkey and West Germany in 1961. This pact aimed to transfer thousands of Turkish rural people to Europe which contributed to the boom in the German economy.
These workers were expected to return to Turkey with new skills and help reorient the Turkish economy from rural agriculture to industry. Turkey made similar agreements with other European countries, including Austria, Belgium, Holland, France, and Sweden. Many of these guest workers confounded expectations, however, by residing permanently and even bringing their families to join them. Furthermore, it was often skilled laborers who emigrated.
With the oil crisis of 1973, the economic downturn has been witnessed in western Europe which gave rise to the end of recruitment of labor from Turkey. However, an economic boom in the Middle East coincided with Europe's recession, allowing Turkish workers to emigrate to countries such as Libya, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq. The Turkish presence in Iraq (and to a lesser extent, other Arab countries) was decreased by the 1991 Gulf War. In the early 1990s, meanwhile, Turkish companies have won construction and industrial contracts in the Russian Federation and other parts of the Commonwealth of Independent States, creating great opportunities there for Turkish workers, engineers, and managers.