KADEM Held “Succesful Integration Panel for Asylum Seeker Women” in New York

March 16th, 2018, New York

KADEM, which attends the United Nations The Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) Sessions every year, held a parallel event called “Successful Integration Models for Asylum Seeker Women: The Role of the State, Local Governments and Civil Society” at the 62nd Session of the Commission this year.
Chief advisor to the President of Republic of Turkey Prof. Gülnur Aybet moderated the panel, President of KADEM Assoc. Prof. E. Sara Aydın Yılmaz, Head of Gaziantep Metropolitan Municipality Health and Welfare Department M. Abdullah Aksoy and Head of General Directorate of Immigration Authority Bureau’s Foreigners Department Gülbahar Arslan attended the panel as speakers.
“Turkey shelters the highest number of refugees in the world”
Assoc. Prof. E. Sare Aydın Yılmaz who talked in “Successful Integration Models for Asylum Seeker Women: The Role of the State, Local Governments and Civil Society” Panel stated that the war in Syria forces many people to flee to other countries as refugees, and pointed out that while The West doesn’t accept refugees which it views as an economical and security problem, Turkey opens its doors to refugees with a humanitarian approach. Aydın continued her talk as follows “Turkey shelters the highest number of refugees in the world. %80 of these refugees consists of women and children. Hence there is a need for special actions regarding them. KADEM, working on getting the international attention to problems of Refugee Women, is developing projects to determine their needs and find solutions. Under our Asylum Seeker Women Socioeconomic Researches Center that contributes to the integration of Refugee Women, we realised profile scans for 5000 Refugee women. In our center where we give legal and psychological counselling, we provide social and cultural activities apart from language and occupational trainings.”
“We put the needs of Refugee Women first”
After Aydın, Gülnur Aybet emphasized in her speech that after opening its doors to Syrians after the war, while continuing to provide humanitarian aid, Turkey developed integration policies and set up necessary mechanisms in respective institutions for their implementation.
After Aybet, Abdullah Aksoy explained works of Gaziantep Metropolitan Municipality on accommodating Syrian refugees, and stated their goal was providing equal access to social integration, employment, education, health and municipal services for a better integration with the community.
Gülbahar Arslan who was the last speaker of the panel emphasized that they put the needs of women refugees first, and said that some of their objectives are providing child care centers, establishing legal counselling centers, and increasing the quantity and quality of women interviewers.