The Samuel Pisar Travelling Fellowship (2016) - Stacy Topouzova
Seeking Legal Protection in Turkey
This research project, ‘Seeking Legal Protection in Turkey: Challenges and Opportunities for Safe Passage’, examined a range of challenges that people experience when seeking legal protection in Turkey. During the course of my fellowship, I had the opportunity to undertake fieldwork in Turkey to examine existing pathways to legal protectionand, and to work with policymakers and legislators on expanding pathways to protection.
Over the course of the months of August and September, I conducted interviews and collected data in three main sites: Istanbul, Gaziantep, and Antakya, Turkey, where I had the opportunity to meet with members of community-led organisations, non-profit organisations, U.N. agencies, governmental ministries, and civil society groups.
The aims of the project were the following:
1. Firstly, to examine the legal pathways through which individuals can obtain legal protection in Turkey; and
2. Secondly, to examine how existing pathways could be expanded beyond Turkey.
The data and insights that were collected led to three main outputs: firstly, while still in Turkey, I worked with Open Democracy to launch a public series that showcased innovative pathways to protection, including humanitarian corridors and humanitarian visas; secondly, after returning to the University of Oxford, I worked with colleagues and experts in my field to establish an Asylum Policy and Practices Advocacy Group with the support of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC); and lastly, I established an initiative, in tandem with colleagues in the field, to draft a ‘safe passage’ bill to be submitted to the Civil Liberties, Justice, and Home Affairs (LIBE) Committee at the European Parliament.
On a personal level, I have been able to draw upon the knowledge, insights, and experiences I gained from the fellowship to:
1. Present at the U.N. High-Level Summit on Migrants and Refugees held at the opening of the U.N. General Assembly in New York between September 18th and 19th . I participated in the ECOSOC delegation discussions and presented my work on safe passage pathways.
2. Assemble a sponsorship group – a group of 5 – to resettle to Toronto, Canada a Syrian family I worked with in Istanbul. I serve as the group representative for the group and am coordinating the resettlement of the family for July 2017.
3. Establish and lead a mentoring programme for refugee students who are interested in applying to study at the University of Oxford. After witnessing, first-hand, the barriers that many Syrian students face in Turkey, I partnered with the Oxford Students’ Refugee Campaign to establish a mentoring programme that matches existing students at the University with refugee students interested in applying, so that they can meaningfully prepare for their studies at the university.
Ultimately, this fellowship was an immensely constructive, insightful, and challenging opportunity for me, both personally and academically, that I will continue to draw upon in my future academic and policy work.