Page 104 - Syrians in Türkiye - Special Report

GRAND NATIONAL ASSEMBLY OF TÜRKİYE THE OMBUDSMAN INSTITUTION

provisions of Law No. 3294). Those who live outside of temporary accommodation
centers may receive other types of assistance as long as their household files are opened
in the Integrated Social Assistance Information System (BSYBS).

The ones who are given temporary protection identity cards can benefit from “Orphan
Benefits, Conditional Education and Health Benefits, and Assistance for Widows”,
which are provided based on Law No. 3294 by opening a household file on the BSYBS.
However, the eligibility for Turkish citizens for aid from BSYBS is determined not
based on the information based on the letter sent by the applicant to SYDVs but based
on the administrative records and the social review report from the instant inquiries
made through the central databases. As for Syrians, these administrative records may
have experienced some problems and are not included in the central database of public
institutions in Türkiye. As a result, there might be some problems for them in benefiting
from other social assistance programs under Law No. 3294. However, since centralized
aid is made through the BSYBS, beneficiary statuses is verified at each payment period
in accordance with the relevant central database inquiries. In other words, it is not
expected that the use of central aids will be widespread in the short term because the
Syrians do not have records in these databases.

On the other hand, the aid for Syrian individuals with identification numbers starting
with 99 can be viewed by institutions sharing data via the BSYBS system. Efforts are
underway to share data under the same constraints as the Turkish Red Crescent. In the
MFSP Integrated System, there is no problem getting data from the related institutions.
The local governments in Türkiye also want to be included in the BSYBS in order to
make the process management and aid organizations reliable and productive. 61

On the other hand, during our field visits and interviews we observed that the Syrians
living in city centers are in much more difficult economic conditions than others who
live in TACs, and that some of them are living in quite dire conditions. We have learned
that municipal administrations also provide in-kind and cash assistance based on social
investigations about the Syrians who live in city centers.

Residents of Temporary Accommodation Centers are regularly supported by AFAD
cards and Red Crescent cards. In these centers, Syrians’ food needs were at first met by
the camp authorities, either to be procured from the market or cooked in the camps.
However, the difference in taste of the Syrians caused dissatisfaction. In order to solve
this problem, the AFAD Card and Turkish Red Crescent Card programs were started.
61
M. M. Erdoğan, From Disengagement to Integration, Urban Refugees – Syrian Refugees and the Process
Management of the Municipalities: The Case of Istanbul (Istanbul: Marmara Union of Municipalities
Publishing, 2017).

104 SYRIANS IN TÜRKİYE SPECIAL REPORT