IRREGULAR ARMENIAN WORKERS’ PROBLEMS NEGLECTED
Today’s Zaman
Feb 20 2010
Turkey
Irregular Armenian workers in Turkey are perceived as leverage or
only as a component of Ankara-Yerevan relations, and the humanitarian
aspects of the issue are neglected, recent research has pointed out.
Research on the "State of Armenian Irregular Migrants in Turkey" was
conducted by journalist Alin Ozinian in Istanbul, Antalya, Trabzon
and Ankara through focus groups and in-depth interviews as part of
a Eurasia Partnership Foundation project.
In her research, Ozinian concluded that irregular Armenian workers
worry about fluctuations in Turkish-Armenian relations because any turn
for the worse thrusts them into an unwanted spotlight, and politicians
frequently make remarks in this respect, but this situation leaves
the humanitarian aspects of the issue out of the account.
The number of irregular Armenian workers in Turkey is not clear;
several sources indicate different numbers from 20,000 to 70,000,
but a huge majority of them are women who work in domestic service,
as baby-sitters and elder caregivers.
In a meeting at the Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey
(TEPAV) in Ankara on Wednesday, Ozinian said that most of those women
were making around $500-600 a month and either staying in the houses
where they work or renting houses in Kumkapi, Istanbul, which is
known as an Armenian neighborhood.
Ozinian pointed out that the housing conditions were not very good and
that sometimes more than 20 people were living in small houses. Many
of them haven’t seen their relatives for a long time since they are
not able to travel because of irregularities in their papers.
The workers’ children, especially if they were born in Turkey,
face many problems, including being stateless, since there is no
diplomatic representation for Armenia in Turkey and the children
are not registered as citizens. The children are not able to attend
school because their parents are irregular workers and they need to
keep this fact hidden. There are schools in Turkey for the Armenian
minority but because of Turkish law, only Turkish citizens can attend.
Ozinian said that these children — she guessed that their number was
around 600 — were either being educated in the informal irregular
classes established by the workers themselves or getting no education
at all.
According to Ozinian’s observations, the Armenian women workers are
perceived by Turkish society as closer to "Turkish culture" and they
are sexually harassed less compared to women coming from the former
Soviet republics.
Being perceived as closer to Turkish culture makes them preferable
for Turkish employers, but Ozinian underlined that Armenian workers
are still uneasy when working for them because they think that at
any time the situation can change.
"Workers told me that while everything was fine, suddenly, because
of a story in the media regarding Armenian-Turkish relations, their
bosses can make disturbing remarks," she said.
However, Ozinian added that the Armenian workers who work for
Turkish-Armenian families also feel uneasy because they are looked
down on and treated in a patronizing manner.
Ozinian underlined that this attitude might be related to the workers’
expectations of the Turkish Armenians, but workers still preferred to
be employed by them because they believed they would not be reported
to the police.
The research also shows that the Armenian workers over time start to
question their relationships with their husbands, most of whom have
not seen their husbands for a long time. The majority of the workers
(96 percent) are planning to return after saving enough capital to
invest in Armenia, but 4 percent of them thought that they had a life
here and although returning was desirable, it would not be easy.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress