LOCAL INTEGRATION OF SYRIAN REFUGEES: EMPLOYMENT IN ANKARA SITELER

Cities that reshape the world, also became attractive settlements for refugees by offering opportunities. According to recent estimates of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), more than 60% of the world’s total refugees now live in urban areas. In urban areas, refugees face various problems, especially economic and social integration problems. In 2000’s urban refugee issues have been on the agenda and policies have been developed to solve the problems of urban refugees. The most important of these policies is related to the realization of local integration. Refugees’ local integration focus attention on the achievement of housing need, employment, and benefit from services such as education and health in local integration. In local integration, which is a multidimensional process, employment has a special importance. With the civil war in Syria, Turkey has faced a major refugee movement. Since April of 2011, Syrians fleeing from their country began to come to Turkey. The refugee population in Türkiye has multiplied day by day due to the increase of violence in Syria and especially the policies of developed countries which deny the refugees of. Türkiye is hosting nearly 3 million Syrian refugees, as of 2017 March. 8,9% of Syrian refugees are living in the temporary accommodation centers, established in the border cities. 91,1% of Syrian refugees preferred to live in cities because temporary accommodation centers are lack of capacity and also cities present opportunities to build a better future. Syrian refugees try to survive in social, physical and economic context in urban areas while on the other hand they also try to provide basic needs such as shelter, health and education in formal or informal ways. In this context, this study focuses on employment -which is an economic element for local integration- and aims to state the conditions of local integration of the Syrians. Within the scope of the study, Syrians who live and work in Siteler -which is Türkiye’s oldest furniture industry region and an important employment area- and its surrounding, are considered