ICMPD Turkey releases six new policy briefs on Turkey, offering an analysis of major trends and policy development in 2020 in relation to Irregular Migration, Legal Migration, Asylum and Refugees, Trafficking in Human Beings, Migration and Development and Migration and Civil Society.
In 2020, Turkey continued to host the largest number of refugees in the world (since 2014), with over 3.6 million registered Syrians under temporary protection* and close to 350.000 refugees and asylum seekers of other nationalities, putting a major strain on the country. Traditionally a country of origin and transit, recent regional events have contributed to Turkey increasingly becoming a major destination country. In 2020, the migration debate in Turkey was dominated mainly by the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and issues surrounding Syrians under temporary protection, and irregular migration and asylum. 2021 could witness a further increase in the numbers of forcibly displaced in the region, and fresh migratory flows towards Turkey, over continued prevalence of conflicts and the adverse impact of the Covid 19 pandemic, posing major challenges for the country and the region.
With six new policy briefs, ICMPD Turkey offers an analysis of migration data and major policy developments in Turkey in 2020, looks at possible trends and challenges in 2021 and provides policy recommendations for better migration management.
*Turkey is a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol, but maintains a geographical limitation to the Convention. Due to this geographical limitation to the definition of a refugee, Turkey considers Syrians as temporary status holders and other non-European nationalities as international protection status holders.