Syrian refugee children in Turkey face discrimination at school

Tuğçe Özbiçer/ DUVAR

At least 400,000 Syrian refugee children in Turkey are not attending school, and those who are enrolled face a number of difficulties including discrimination and poor treatment from teachers, according to recent findings by local civil society organizations. 

Selda Bozbıyık, a child safety expert from the Hayata Destek foundation said that while the primary goal of organizations like hers is to ensure that children have access to educaiton, another problem involves making sure that they stay in school, adding that many children, particularly in the 15-18 age group leave due to discrimination and marginalization. 

There are currently around 3.6 million Syrians living in Turkey, who have sought refuge in Turkey from the civil war in their country that has gone on for nearly a decade. They do not hold official refugee status but instead are under 'temporary protection' status, registered to a certain province that they officially are not allowed to leave without permission. 

Among the other problems that Syrian children face including child labor, abuse, and child marriage, according to Bozbıyık, who said that there is a false perception in Turkish society that child marriage is a part of Syrian culture, adding that the minimum age requirement to marry in Syria is 18. 

Rojdan Aksoy, who has conducted fieldwork on the subject in the southeastern province of Mardin, said that Syrian refugee children become aware that Turkishness is the “legitimate” identity of the country. 

“Children who accept Turkishness as the supreme identity feel that they are insufficient and see their own existence as problematic. As a matter of fact, in Turkey where Turkishness is considered the top identity, this is a problem experienced by all children of different identities,” Aksoy said. 

Mardin is home to significant populations of Kurds, Yazidis, and Assyrians, though Syrian Kurds and Turkish Kurds have trouble socializing if the latter do not speak Kurdish and the former do not speak Turkish, Aksoy said. “We don't refer to the Kurds here as Turks but as Turkified,” said one middle-aged Syrian Kurdish that Aksoy spoke with. 

“If only I was a Turk and not a Kurd. My teacher doesn't listen to me, and thinks that we aren't intelligent,” an 11-year-old Syrian Kurdish child told Aksoy. 

Another obvious problem is that Syrian refugee children in Turkey deal with the trauma of experiencing and escaping from war. 

“War is bad and [children] that have experienced it have broken hearts. They don't know how to read and write, they can't learn. If we treat them well, perhaps we can make them forget about war,” said one 10-year-old child from Mardin. 

Another 12-year-old child pointed out that the media never has anything good to say about Syrians: 

“There are so many reports about Syrians kidnapping children. There is always bad news about them, never good news. In the reports they shouldn't say 'a Syrian', they should say 'a person',” the child said.