More than 700 women and dozens of women’s organizations issued a statement against racism and anti-immigrant sentiment in Turkey.
For the last couple of weeks, there has been an ongoing debate in Turkey, especially on social media about the women allegedly being sexually harassed by the refugees in Turkey.
Although there is no verified data or information that reveals that perpetrators of sexual harassment against women are mostly immigrant men in Turkey, many people believe that is the case. This discourse also has been used a lot by some of the political party leaders as grounds for sending refugees back to their countries, which is among the heated topics in Turkey.
Eighty-two women’s organizations and more than 700 women issued a written statement addressing their concerns about the increasing racism against refugees in Turkey.
The statement was in response to videos on Tiktok reportedly shot by refugee men, which have further fueled the already high anti-refugee sentiment in the country over the past weeks.
Women opposing the use of “women’s safety” as a discourse to increase hatred against migrants in Turkey said: “We stand with immigrants, not racism, discrimination, hostility to immigrants or hatred.”
The signatory groups and activists have come under fire on social media platforms following the release of the statement, with some posts including misogynistic, threatening, demeaning language.
Their statement is as follows:
As hate is fueled by unverified social media posts and videos, anti-refugee sentiment escalates, and allegations of individual crimes are instrumentalized to target immigrants as a whole.
This traps the lives of all immigrants regardless of their status, in an inextricable cycle of discrimination and violence, including refugees, who are currently struggling with all kinds of difficulties, whose will is ignored, and who are used as a bargaining chip by the political power is made in every negotiation with the European Union.
In this dark climate political tradesmen, who have increased their power by adopting racism and hatred as their principle, and whose hostility towards women and LGBTI+ are well known, are trying to create a legitimate ground for their racism by putting forward “concerns about the safety of women.
“Immigrants cannot be turned into enemies”
The targeting of immigrants and refugees functions as one of the methods of channeling the anger accumulated in the face of socio-economic problems in every part of the society and camouflaging the responsibility of the political power.
Immigration is a human right. While the real culprits of war, destruction, all the massacres carried out for the sake of imperialist dreams, male violence, unemployment, and economic crisis are hidden, the immigrants who survived these policies cannot be targeted as enemies.
“Male violence is on the rise”
Migrant-refugee women and LGBTI+s who cannot access even the most basic rights under current conditions: In the face of harassment, discrimination, exploitation, threats, ill-treatment, physical, sexual, psychological, economic and male violence they are exposed to due to institutionalized racism and discrimination, they become completely reluctant to apply to any authority and to complain.
We know very well that every war, every hostile rhetoric and every kind of racist uprising escalates xenophobia, misogyny, transphobia, homophobia, hatred, male violence and usurpation of rights.