Statistics are provided by the Directorate-General for Migration Management (DGMM) on the total number of recipients of international protection and temporary protection, as well as data on registration of the latter across provinces. Resettlement: Resettlement stopped between March 2020 and until September due to COVID-19. The COVID-19 situation significantly affected resettlement processing; however, remote interviewing measures were implemented in five locations in Turkey in cooperation with the DGMM, allowing the gradual resumption of interviews that were suspended from March to June.
General
- Flow chart
- Types of procedures
- List of authorities that intervene in each stage of the procedure
- Number of staff and nature of the determining authority
- Short overview of the asylum procedure
Are any of the procedures provided for in the law not applied in practice. A Council of Ministers decree issued in February 2018 established 36 District Directorates for Migration Management (İlçe Göç İdaresi Müdürlüğü) in 16 provinces, under the responsibility of the respective PDMM.19.
Access to the procedure and registration
Access to the territory and push backs
Most of them had to stay at the bus station, as bus transportation was not guaranteed due to COVID-19. For safety reasons, women could not go to the toilet in the evening without a male companion.
Removal and refoulement
58 Information from a lawyer at the Gaziantep Bar Association, February 2019; International Association for Refugee Rights, February 2019; Antakya Bar Association lawyer, March 2019. Sometimes there is no notification when the PDMM sends the applicant's file to the court.
Registration of the asylum application
Applications for international protection are now registered exclusively by the PDMM in any of the 81 provinces. It can also be difficult to apply for international protection at a removal center in the Marmara region.
Procedures
- Regular procedure
- Dublin
- Admissibility procedure
- Border procedure (border and transit zones)
- Accelerated procedure
In most cases, a personal interview of the asylum seeker is conducted in regular practice. Is a personal interview of the asylum seeker conducted in practice in most cases?
Guarantees for vulnerable groups
- Identification
- Special procedural guarantees
- Use of medical reports
- Legal representation of unaccompanied children
The child applicant must be referred to a suitable housing facility under the Ministry of Family and Social Services. Human rights organizations are following the case closely because of the child's many vulnerabilities.
Subsequent applications
A UNHCR led inter-agency best interest determination panel consisting of representatives of UN and NGOs convened monthly resulting in 111 best interest determinations.299.
The safe country concepts
First country of asylum
Safe third country
The Court noted that the expulsion decision did not specify a country, but only a 'safe third country'. In addition, the expulsion decisions themselves refer to the term safe third country, but a specific country is usually not mentioned.
Information for asylum seekers and access to NGOs and UNHCR
Provision of information on the procedure
However, they are held in removal centers because there is no safe third country willing to accept them. PDMM used a new form for evaluating a safe third country to which Syrians can be deported.
Access to NGOs and UNHCR
Other organizations such as Refugee Rights Turkey and International Refugee Rights Association in Istanbul and Mülteci-Der in Izmir have helplines and can be reached by telephone. There are also NGOs that help vulnerable groups, such as KADAV and Women's Solidarity Foundation for women in Istanbul and Ankara respectively, Kaos GL based in Ankara helps LGBTI people, as well as Red Umbrella Sexual Health and Human Rights Association.
Differential treatment of specific nationalities in the procedure
The Refugee Support Center (Mülteci Destek Derneği, MUDEM) is present in several provinces, while IKGV has several offices in Turkey and provides information and psychosocial support. An expert opinion commissioned by PRO ASYL in 2020 concluded that Afghans seeking protection in Turkey had not received adequate protection for years.
Access and forms of reception conditions
- Criteria and restrictions to access reception conditions
- Forms and levels of material reception conditions
- Reduction or withdrawal of reception conditions
- Freedom of movement
According to the latest list, 62 provinces in Turkey are designated by DGMM as "satellite cities" for the referral of applicants for international protection:358. Before the changes in the registration system, applicants for international protection had to approach UNHCR / SGDD-ASAM in Ankara with a view to registering an application with UNHCR.
Housing
Types of accommodation
82 gender identity or civil status of the applicant (eg single woman) or simply because of the applicant's employment relationship with PDMM staff. Even when released from Removal Centers after being detained for failing to fulfill the obligation to reside in the designated province, asylum seekers are often required to report regularly to the Removal Center or a PDMM in a province other than the one in which they reside.
Conditions in reception facilities
The officer was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in 2011 but did not serve time in prison. 381 İstanbul – BIA News Desk, Police officer sentenced to prison for killing Festus Okey, March 18, 2021, https://bit.ly/2QKgII1.
Employment and education
Access to the labour market
Figures are not yet available for 2020.395 Applicants for international protection continue to face widespread undeclared work and labor exploitation in Turkey, similar to beneficiaries of temporary protection (see Temporary protection: Access to the labor market). Due to the type of work typically performed by refugees, their poor economic situation and lack of access to public services such as health care, the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic affected refugees more, exacerbating pre-existing income inequality.403 Since Turkey's economy depends heavily on temporary workers, the declining labor force participation of refugees during the pandemic had a negative impact on the economy.
Access to education
Asylum-seeking children can also gain access to private schools, which are subject to tuition fees. As mentioned above, most initiatives were suspended in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in the field of education, as most students (including Turkish) studied at home for most of the year.
Health care
In any case, free health care coverage under the general health insurance scheme also extends to mental health services provided by public health care institutions. Thus, the current barriers to Registration have consequences for asylum seekers' access to health care.
Special reception needs of vulnerable groups
LGBTI people are not mentioned as a category of "persons with special needs" in the LFIP. Nevertheless, their special situation was taken into account in the process of allocating a "satellite city" in the past.447 Before the termination of the "joint registration" system in September 2018, UNHCR / SGDD-ASAM mainly referred LGBTI persons to specific provinces where societies were known to be more open and sensitive to this population.
Information for asylum seekers and access to reception centres
Provision of information on reception
People living with HIV are not explicitly identified in the LFIP as a group with special needs. The limited training and familiarity of health care institutions with their situation create obstacles to effective access to health care.457.
Access to reception centres by third parties
Differential treatment of specific nationalities in reception
That said, Syrians' access to substantive rights is generally described as more straightforward than that of non-Syrian applicants for international protection. Persons who have made a request for international protection and have been apprehended without documentation or outside the designated province ("satellite city") without authorization;.
Legal framework of detention
- Grounds for detention
- Alternatives to detention
- Detention of vulnerable applicants
- Duration of detention
Article 68(3) LFIP requires an individualized assessment of the necessity of detention, and the consideration of less coercive alternatives to detention in the international protection procedure. In general, young men are detained in the removal center, but there can also be exceptional cases.
Detention conditions
Place of detention
Some refugees were detained at police stations because there was no vehicle to transport them to the removal center.539. Mersin: The basement of the Yumuktepe Police Station in Demirtaş District has been unofficially used to detain persons awaiting transfer to a removal center.
Conditions in detention facilities
Lawyers from the Migration and Asylum Commission of the Gaziantep Chamber of Advocates took an interest in the incident but were not given information by the center's management. 116 The Commission also expressed concerns about the lack of emergency response kits in the center's infirmary during its visit.587.
Access to detention facilities
In the absence of a telephone in the relevant section of the removal centre, refugees' access to their family, lawyer and the Bar Association was virtually non-existent. 612 Information provided by a lawyer from the Kayseri Bar Association, February 2019; a lawyer from the Antakya Bar Association, March 2019.
Procedural safeguards
Judicial review of the detention order
632 Information provided by a lawyer from the Antakya Bar Association, February 2018; a lawyer from the Adana Bar Association, February 2018. One of the rare positive decisions in this area was issued by the Magistrate's Court of Kirklareli on the application of Rida Boudraa, the first applicant to obtain an interim measure from the Constitutional Court.
Legal assistance for review of detention
Differential treatment of specific groups in detention
European country of origin"665 meet the conditions for refugee status under the LFIP, thereby fully recognizing Turkey's obligations under the 1951 Convention. To persons who fall within the definition of a refugee in the article of the 1951 Convention, but come from a so-called "non-European country of origin" , conditional refugee status under the LFIP is offered instead.
Status and residence
- Residence permit
- Civil registration
- Long-term residence
- Naturalisation
- Cessation and review of protection status
- Withdrawal of protection status
It is a personal interview of the beneficiary in most cases carried out in practice at intervals. It is a personal interview of the beneficiary in most cases conducted in practice on withdrawal.
Family reunification
Criteria and conditions
While the LFIP does not expressly provide the same level of guarantees in withdrawal procedures as in the case of termination, as it does not refer to a right for the beneficiary to submit its comments,686 the possibility to submit oral or written comments "within a reasonable period of time" is indicated in RFIP.687.The remaining rules and procedures are the same as in Termination.Spouse whereby only one spouse can benefit from family reunification in case of polygamous marriages;692.
Status and rights of family members
As of January 2021, the Turkish Red Crescent has received a total of 3,239 requests for family reunification.
Movement and mobility
Freedom of movement
Travel documents
Resettlement
The COVID-19 situation has significantly impacted the processing of resettlement; however, in cooperation with DGMM, remote interviewing measures were put in place at five locations in Turkey, allowing interviews, which had been suspended from March to June, to gradually resume. At the end of October 2020, UNHCR has submitted more than 5,633 resettlement applications (4,625 Syrians and 1,008 refugees of other nationalities) in 18 countries; and 3,382 refugees (2,602 Syrians and 780 of other nationalities) left for resettlement to 14 countries.706 NGOs reported that due to the economic crisis, the number of calls related to resettlement increased dramatically, which may mean that the pandemic has weakened people's desire to in Turkey.707.
Housing
134 All relocations from Turkey were suspended at the beginning of 2020, including the bilateral agreement between Germany and Turkey on the readmission of refugees, due to the Corona virus. The pandemic also affected relocation departures due to the global pause in international flights between March and September.
Employment and education
The LFIP does not distinguish between applicants and beneficiaries of international protection with regard to access to education (see Reception conditions: Access to education).
Social welfare
Health care
A PDMM unit is present at the airport and lawyers can easily access files. It can also help in the future family reunification of the child with the parents in case of family separation.
Scope and activation procedure
Therefore, technically as part of the secondary legislation, the provisions and implementation of the TPR must be consistent and consistent with the general normative framework defined by the LFIP itself. For purposes of clarity, the following sections refer to the "Presidency" and not the "Council of Ministers".
Qualification for temporary protection
Eligibility criteria
139 nationals who can arrive via another country, even if their relatives already enjoy temporary protection in Turkey.723. The relatively small number of Syrian nationals who continue to legally arrive in Turkey with valid passports in the period since the adoption of the TPR on 22 October 2014 maintains this possibility.
Cessation of temporary protection
142 There continue to be cases of persons whose temporary protection status was terminated and who were issued the "V87" code, not having the opportunity to regain their rights after returning to Turkey. In case of deportation for a registered Syrian, temporary protection was deactivated and a code called c-114 was issued.
Exclusion and cancellation of temporary protection
In 2020, the cancellation of temporary protection was widespread in the southeast region due to people. The cancellation of temporary protection was also widespread in Konya where there are many Syrians.
Access to temporary protection and registration
- Admission to territory
- Registration under temporary protection
- Appeal
- Legal assistance
144 In 2020, the authorities did not inform beneficiaries of temporary protection about the cancellation of protection. Those involved in the Edirne/Pazarkula incidents described in Access to Territory and Pushes also lost temporary protection.
Detention in the temporary protection framework
Protection from refoulement
Since 2018, deportation decisions have increasingly been issued to Syrians based on the above provisions, corresponding to persons seeking international protection in Turkey. Those apprehended at the border are also registered, fingerprinted and forced to sign a voluntary return form to prevent them from entering Turkey legally.
Temporary protection identification document
Under these amendments, Syrians under temporary protection will be deported if they fail to report three times in a row.803. In Gaziantep, voluntary return forms are also signed by force and the temporary protection status of those returning to Turkey is not reactivated, except in vulnerable cases.
Naturalisation
This provision clearly allows the DGMM to limit the freedom of movement of beneficiaries of temporary protection to a specific province, a specific camp or other location. Therefore, the current framework of temporary protection does not provide for the provision of (refugee) travel documents to beneficiaries of temporary protection in the sense of the 1951 Convention.
Resettlement and family reunification departures
860 SGDD-ASAM and UN Women, Assessment of the needs of Syrian women and girls under temporary protection status in Turkey, June 2018, available at: https://bit.ly/2z8zb5k, 21. Beneficiaries of temporary protection have only entitled to access health care services in the province where they are registered.
Guarantees for vulnerable groups
1035 Red Umbrella Sexual Health and Human Rights Association, Syrians under "temporary protection" in Turkey and sex work. 1040 Red Umbrella Sexual Health and Human Rights Association, Syrians under "temporary protection" in Turkey and sex work.