Field Visit To Turkey

The ForMOVe project will use quantitative and qualitative methods in order to collect primary data in transit countries. One of the objectives of the project is comparing the several aspects of organized violence and forced migration at the national level in these transit countries. Additional to this objective, ForMOVe also aims to produce data and analysis from different urban areas of these countries. To follow these objectives, a first field visit to Turkey took place at the end of February.

The field visit was scheduled for eleven days in İstanbul. One of the data collection methods in use is visiting experts and having interviews with them in order to enable empirical analysis on a meso-level. In this first field visit, a pretest of questionnaire, listing of NGOs and governmental organizations as well as receiving their contacts, explanatory visits to migrant’s areas and interviews with experts were planned to be realized.

At the beginning of the field trip, the Turkish-German University Migration and Integration Research Center, which is the local partner of ForMOVe in Turkey, was visited in order to (i) decide the strategies of field operation, (ii) develop and discuss the questionnaire and (iii) classify the governmental and non-governmental organizations in migration and organized violence areas. During the following days, researchers from migration studies were visited to enrich information on the local situation of forced migrants in İstanbul. Very active and productive NGO’s were contacted and visited to learn their activities and projects for migrants.

Four expert interviews were conducted during this field trip to İstanbul. Two of these experts are working in governmental organizations and are planning activities to facilitate migrants’ integration in their districts. One of the experts is responsible for supervising a data collection project in local areas in a very-well known international migration organization. The other expert is the general director of a foundation which carries out activities supporting the physical and academic development of children and preparing projects towards disadvantaged and traumatized children in their program.

During the field trip to İstanbul, the Turkish Government declared that passage of forced migrants from Turkey to Europe would no longer be blocked. Turkish Interior Minister explained that the number of forced migrants who left Turkey over Edirne province was 76.358 in one day. According to the report of Support to Life, the majority of those forced migrants were Iranians and Afghans, Syrians were the third largest group of forced migrants. The explanatory visits took place at bus stations to observe the flow of forced migrants from Turkey to the Turkish-Greek border.

During the following days of the field visit, two districts of İstanbul were visited to conduct the pretest of questionnaire. Forced migrants from Syria and Afghanistan were interviewed for the pretest. Turkish, English and Arabic versions of the questionnaire were used for testing. The clarity of the questions and the design of the questionnaire were tested for Turkish and Arabic versions of it. The pretest in Turkey was realized simultaneously to the pretest in Mexico.