Tag Archives: Ahmet Davutoğlu

In Turkey, a Syrian Child ‘Has to Work to Survive’ – The New York Times

June 6, 2016 By in Business Administration, Immigration, People, Politics Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

In an outstanding article the NYT reports that over one million Syrian children live in Turkey, and thousands work in factories or sweatshops to provide for their families, rather than attend school.

Source: In Turkey, a Syrian Child ‘Has to Work to Survive’ – The New York Times

This article deploys subjective research looking at the lives of individual children. It’s deeply alarming and worrying.

The EU is stumping up billions of Euro to help the plight of Syrian refugees, including the education of children. Surely, the EU authorities have checks and balances?

It’s easy to target the Turkish government for lapses but the article also highlights the greed of Turkish businesses.

For international buyers of good from Turkey, there’s a need to conduct surprise audits of the manufacturing facilities in Turkey. Responsible retailers should introduce new seals of quality, like for coffee.

Thoughts?

Erdoğan calls on states to help with refugee crisis – POLITICS – Hurriyet Daily News

May 24, 2016 By in Immigration, People, Politics Tags: , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan an...

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and President Barack Obama in the Oval Office, Dec. 7, 2009. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Turkish newspaper Hurriyet cites  President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan from an op-ed penned for The Guardian. The bottom line is that Turkey is calling on the world to create a fair mechanism to share the refugee burden.

Source: Erdoğan calls on states to help with refugee crisis – POLITICS

On the surface of it, this article is reasonable. However, it does not reflect the political and social context. For example, densely populated countries, like the UK, should not be expected to share the same burden as more sparsely populated countries, like the US, Canada and Australia. Another political aspect is Angela Merkel throwing billions of Euros of EU money at the crisis, in an attempt to stem the tide of migration to Europe, especially Germany – Germany has bullied the rest of the EU into submission on refugees but the people are pushing back everywhere, most notably in Germany. Finally, many will be wary of Turkey’s president writing op-eds in liberal Western newspapers because it is uncertain whether foreign leaders would be granted the same freedoms in Turkey.

Thoughts?