An evaluation of social policy towards Syrians in Turkey

Migration is as old as human history. Humans has been changing their living spaces either voluntarily or by force due to economical, societal, religional or other reasons in the form of individual or mass. Turkey has become one of the most affected countries as the anti-regime movements in Syria that began in 2011 has turned into civil war and as a consequence, millions of Syrians has immigrated to Turkey forcedly. The process, reasons and consequences of this immigration in the context of war has become one of the most significant issues of the country. In this study, the social policies that are exerted to Syrian refugees in the context of war are subjected. In the part of theoretical framework, the concepts of migration, refugee, immigrant and temporary protection, and the differences between those concepts are explained. In this study, the relationships between process of Syrians migration in 2011, Syrians' demographic structure, war and migration are clarified. In the second part, the correlations between reasons and consequences of migration, social policies and migration are explicated. In part three, the reasons of Syrian immigration, social policies that are applied by Turkish government for Syrians, and administrative and legal regulations are stated. As the concept of migration is multidimensional, the social policies for Syrians show also variety. In this study, the procedure of producing those policies and relationships between different ministries, non-governmental organizations and public in cooperation to put those theories into practice are studied.