Refugee women, children 'afraid to go out' amid increasing anti-refugee rhetoric on social media

"Don't forget; we all may become refugees one day."

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Increasing racist rhetoric towards refugees on social media has reached a point of concern for the refugee community.

Nazeela Elmi, a refugee, Dilan Taşdemir, a member of the Media and Migration Association and Ayşegül Karpuz, a lawyer, spoke to bianet about the recent anti-refugee sentiments.

"I had to disguise my identity"

Content shared on social media has an impact on various processes, especially refugee women's integration to society and benefiting from social services in Turkey, said Elmi.

She said she is wary of the reports on harassment, rape and violence involving refugees on social media, adding that coming from the Middle East makes integration more difficult. She and her family are subjected to violence in indirect ways and have to disguise their identity in order not to be otherized.

Although they have short-term residence permits and they pay taxes and cover all their expenses themselves, there is a belief among the people around them that they receive salaries from the state, noted Elmi.

As a solution, public awareness should be raised and policies should be developed against hate speech on social media, she said.

Refugee women and violence

With Turkey's withdrawal from the İstanbul Convention, a Council of Europe treaty to combat violence against women and children, refugee women subjected to violence lost an institution that they can apply to. Already faced with otherization, women's access to information about where to apply in such cases is disrupted.

The İstanbul Convention was something to rely on for women subjected to violence, said Elmi.

There is no accessible map about where refugee women subjected to violence should apply, Elmi said, adding that their access to fundamental rights is also restricted because they are foreign citizens.

"Two or three years ago, a friend of mine applied to the police when their phone was stolen and they said they could not find it because they were a foreign citizen.

"There were refugees who were told not to go out during the Covid period. There was a belief that refugees would bring disease. The matter is not being seen as a human being."

"Potentially responsible for every problem"

Anti-refugee rhetoric reinforces the perception of hatred in the public, said Taşdemir, adding that refugees are seen as potentially responsible for every problem.

"Hatred fueled on social media may lead to horrible pictures in neighborhoods that we call pogroms," she said.

"They don't want to send their children to school"

Karpuz also said racism fueled on social media materializes as fights in neighborhoods. Because of the new racist wave, refugee women are afraid of going out and refugees don't want to send their children to school, she added.

Seemingly well-intentioned comments about Turkey's "bad migration policies" may also serve anti-refugee rhetoric, she warned.

"It is not considered seemingly well-intentioned comments about the fact that Turkey's migration policy is bad serve what purpose. Political criticism on social media does not help in preventing violence and racist discourse against refugees go unpunished," she said.

Legal action should be taken about the attacks against refugees, she said.

"There is a migration management that makes a registered refugee unregistered. Our migration policy cannot sustain the temporary protection regime because of the existing population density and security is still not established in Syria."

Refugees and crime

While there are those involved in criminal activities among refugee groups, those are individual examples, said Karpuz.

Turkey's economic situation and increasing unemployment and poverty triggers anger towards the vulnerable individuals, she said, adding that Europe should also take responsibility.

"Hatred is spreading"

A hardened structure in the media about reporting news on refugees fuels racism and discrimination, Karpuz noted, adding that things may become worse with "incredibly angry people adopting racism and a political environment that cannot produce solutions to this." (MD/EMK/VK)