Abstract
Incorporation of female migrant workers to the labor market through informal channels generally results in employment without social security benefits, under poor working conditions and with low wages. All over the world, precarious workers and migrant work in dirty, dangerous and demeaning jobs (3D jobs) that the local workers are usually unwilling to undertake. At the same time, it is well-established that migration causes a significant increase in the amount of time women devote to paid and unpaid work. When the exploitative, unfair and risky nature of migrant labor is combined with the discriminative practices against women and gender stereotypes, the destructive influence of gender roles is amplified and discriminatory practices are solidified.
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Notes
- 1.
According to the definition by Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants—PICUM: ‘People lacking the required valid documents to reside or work in the country they currently reside in are called “undocumented migrants”. This includes people whose visitation, residence or working permits have expired or have been invalidated for other reasons; those whose international protection applications were rejected; those who entered the country through illegal means; and the children of “undocumented” parents born in the host country’. Development Workshop (2016b: 78). For detailed information, see http://picum.org/words-matter/.
- 2.
For an overview of the literature in Turkey, see Gülay Toksöz and Çağla Ünlütürk-Ulutaş (2012).
- 3.
‘Çukurova is a region of Southern Turkey including the provinces of Mersin, Adana, Osmaniye and Hatay. Majority of the region consists of plains, one of which is the Adana Plain. Even though, the names “Adana Plain (Adana Ovası)” and “Çukurova” are generally used interchangeably, that is a common mistake. Adana Plain is only a part of the larger region called Çukurova, located to the south of the city of Adana including the Seyhan, Karataş, Yüreğir and Yumurtalık districts’ Development Workshop (2016a: 7).
- 4.
Findings are from a survey conducted in the province of Adana between July 24 and August 3, 2016. The questionnaire was targeted toward the representatives of 266 local or migratory Syrian households located in tent areas near where seasonal agricultural workers work as paid agricultural workers. The tent areas populous with Syrian workers were determined by a pre-survey in the Adana Plain that helped to have a list of tent areas where the actual survey took place. A total of 1655 Syrian migrants was included in the survey and 52.7% (872 person) of them were under 18 years old and 49% (820 person) were females. The data presented in this article is a re-categorized and reviewed version that enabled a focus on women migrants. Additionally, further interviews were also conducted with seasonal agricultural workers of both Turkish and Syrian nationalities who have been in the region since 2015; these findings were utilized in the analysis as well. For a detailed analysis of the research method and the research findings, see Development Workshop (2016a).
- 5.
According to TURKSTAT Household Labor Force Statistics for September 2017, women’s overall labor force participation rate is 34% and the employment rate stands at 29%. Of 54.6% of the employed women working in services, 30.6% work in agriculture and 13.8% in the industrial sector. The corresponding ratios for employed men are 52.4% in services, 15.7% in agriculture, 21.2% in the industrial sector and 10.8% in construction. The rate of informal employment in agriculture was 94.5%. The same ratio for women was only 25% in the non-agricultural sectors.
- 6.
One of the most recent reports on Syrian women living in Turkey published by UN Women and ASAM (Association for Solidarity with Asylum Seekers and Migrants) in 2018 presents findings from surveys and interviews with 1291 Syrian women and girls in seven provinces and shows that 15% of the sample group are working in permanent or temporary/seasonal jobs in agriculture, textile and service sectors (UNWOMEN-ASAM 2018: 8–45).
- 7.
There was a total of 240 children (17 or younger) in the sample group, 122 of which were girls and 50.8% of these girls were paid agricultural workers.
- 8.
The 2017–2023 National Programme on Combating Child Labour prepared in the National Program (2017–2023) of the Ministry of Work and Social Security states that seasonal migratory agricultural labor is one of the worst forms of child labor. Seasonal migratory agricultural work was declared as the worst form of child labor in 2005 in a Time-Bound National Policy and Programme Framework for the Prevention of Child Labour in 2005, in keeping with ILO Convention No. 182 for the elimination of the worst forms of child labor.
- 9.
During the time of data collection in July 2016, the US dollar was around 3 TL.
- 10.
According to WEF—World Economic Forum Global Gender Gap Report, 2017—Syria was ranked in 142th place out 144 regarding gender equality. http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GGGR_2017.pdf. In the report dated 2010, just before the outbreak of the Syrian civil conflict, Syria’s rank was 124 out of 134, http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GenderGap_Report_2010.pdf. The Global Gender Gap Report benchmarks 144 countries on their progress toward gender parity across four thematic dimensions: Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival and Political Empowerment; 14 indicators in total are used to calculate the index. The index is formed via four steps: normalizing the findings, rounding the values to compare gender equality between countries, calculating sub-index values and computing the final index values. Index value is defined between 0 and 1; values closer to 0 indicate a larger gender gap while values closer to 1 represent a smaller gap. The data the report is based on comes from the International Labor Organization, WEF Specialist Opinion Survey, LABORSTA Online Database, UN Development Program, Human Development Report, UNESCO, WHO.
- 11.
Fariba Nawa reporting for Financial Times interviewed Syrian women’s vulnerability and the weakening ties of marriage in Syrian households (Nawa 2017).
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Dedeoğlu, S., Sefa Bayraktar, S. (2020). Bitter Lives on Fertile Lands: Syrian Women’s Work and Labor in Turkish Agricultural Production. In: Williams, L., Coşkun, E., Kaşka, S. (eds) Women, Migration and Asylum in Turkey. Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28887-7_8
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