Ankara - Women and girls, who make up around 50 percent of any refugees around the world, have to live under the harshest conditions in Turkey. These women are informal employments and they face violence, abuse, and rights violations at work. Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) Izmir MP Serpil Kemalbay brought up the issue of working refugee women to the agenda of the Turkish Grand National Assembly.

Serpil Kemalbay demands a parliamentary investigation commission to be established to investigate the problems faced by migrant, refugee, and asylum seeker women in working life.  

“Lack of legal security and poverty make refugee women dependent on their employers, and this dependency relationship brings new ways of abuse and exploitation with it. Refugee women are seen as the main source of unregistered profits and many refugee women work informally as domestic workers. Many studies on refugee women working as domestic workers in Turkey revealed that the employers seize refugee women’s passports and that the women have been subjected to violence and maltreatments such as verbal harassment, sexual harassment, discrimination, and humiliation. Migrant, refugee, and asylum seeker women are categorized as a vulnerable group in working life. A parliamentary investigation commission should be immediate established to investigate the problems faced by them in the working life, rights violations against them in Removal Centers in Turkey and to punish the officers mistreated refugee women.”