Social integration of refugees in Türkiye: a field of collaboration between Turkish Red Crescent and the EU

Abstract

Türkiye has been hosting approximately 6 million migrants, according to the World Migration Report published by the International Organization for Migration in 2022. To manage the migration flows, the EU has provided financial assistance to Turkish civil society organizations working on the integration of migrants. One of those organizations has been the Turkish Red Crescent. The migration literature criticizes the externalization approach of the EU and the instrumentalization approach of Türkiye in the 2000s. However, this paper focuses on the good practices of those actors and argues that the EU-Turkish Red Crescent collaboration has directly served the social integration of refugees. The migration-related programs and activities of the Turkish Red Crescent allow the religious and cultural similarities between the societies to contribute positively to the integration. It is concluded in the paper that collaborative actions among the regional actors, state, and civil society to overcome problems between refugees and the host community and contribute to producing a peaceful environment for social integration.