Stk’ların Suriyeli Göçmen Kadınların ‘Güçlenmesine’ Etkileri: Hatay Örneği

Abstract

PEHLİVAN, Kevser. “Effects of NGO's on Consolidation of Syrian Immigrant Women: Hatay Case", Master Thesis, Ankara, 2019.

The aim of this study is to examine the effects of Syrian women's attendance in NGO projects focusing on women's rights to which Syrian women involved after their migration to Hatay and the study investigates how their attendance to these projects changed their ideas upon gender equality and gender roles, if the change occurs as a result of projects, the study aims to analyze positive and negative reflections of the projects in women’s lives considering the meaning of these changes for women. In other words, within the scope of this study, feminist methodology is used and the experiences of women are focused in order to investigate whether Syrian women’s attendance to these projects, who try to integrate themselves to new social context, encourage them to destroy the gender disbalance/inequality which was the reality of their social lives before their migration, and whether these projects contribute them to make changes in their lives in Turkey in terms of gender disbalance/inequality.

In this study, the database upon semi-structured interviews is taken from 21 Syrian immigrant women living in Hatay and attending NGO gender education activities. The study showed that the knowledge and consciousness of women regarding their civil rights increased as a result of their attendance to these projects, besides these projects positively influenced the hopes of women from themselves and their daughters and in this sense they reported that they feel stronger. On the other hand, this kind of mind transformation is still not reflected in real life, due to patriarchy in their Syrian-dominant living areas and practical obstacles women meet on their way to achieve their rights. Furthermore, for some of the women participants in the study, internalization and practicing what they have learned in the projects not only prevented by their social environment, but also by the confusion they experienced because of the contradiction of new-learned information with the patriarchal codes they have grown up, as a result, they become less volunteered to put new-learned knowledge into practice. In other words, although this study mainly demonstrates that NGO activities favored Syrian women's consciousness on gender equality, some women experience difficulties while applying this knowledge to practice because they could not internalize the new-knowledge on gender-equality, and some have been pressured by their social environment. However, some women partially put new information into practice and even that situation lead to many success stories by increasing women's self-confidence. To sum up, this study showed that NGO activities enhanced positive transformations regarding the consciousness of Syrian women living in Hatay, however, when these women experience difficulties in achieving their rights because of patriarchal structure and social pressure, they feel tense and unhappy.

Keywords: Woman and forced migration, Syrian women, gender equality, non-governmental organization, awareness-raising activities