Findings of the survey is announced on 6th December 2006 with a meeting

Press release

- 4 March 2005 Workshop

 -  4 May 2005 Meeting

During the last 20 years in Turkey, especially in East and South East Anatolia, many villages and fields have been evacuated as a result of internal armed conflicts. In addition, economic reasons, large scale development projects as part of South-eastern Anatolia Project (GAP), earthquakes, natural disasters or settlement policies led the settlements to be evacuated.

 Turkish government started the “Return to Villages and Rehabilitation Project” intended for this group of population. Among the main aims of the Project which currently includes 14 provinces, settlement of people, who voluntarily desire to return, into their own villages or other suitable territories, providing the necessary social and economic infrastructure, providing sustainable living conditions in this area, reconstruction of  the rural life which was subjected to interruption, ensuring a more balanced settlement in rural areas, a more rational distribution of public investments and services, and supporting the development of central villages can be listed.

 According to the data provided by the Ministry of Interior Affairs, by the end of the January 2005, there were 357,000 people who were displaced as a result of internal armed conflicts in the 12 provinces (Batman, Bingöl, Bitlis, Diyarbakır, Elazığ, Hakkari, Mardin, Muş, Siirt, Şırnak, Tunceli ve Van) in East and South East Anatolia. The number of people who have returned as part of this project is about 127,000. On the other hand, some international organizations declare the number of mentioned population between 1 and 4,5 million. In addition to different numbers expressed by Turkish government and Non-Governmental Organizations, there are criticisms concerning the low number of people returned as part of “Return to Villages and Rehabilitation Project”, the current security problems in the region, the critiques related to existence of village guards as a barrier for the return, non-participatory nature of the project and the possibility of recent compensation law’s not responding the actual needs of internally displaced persons.

 The main purpose of this study that will be conducted by Hacettepe University of Population Studies (HIPS) is to develop a model or models concerning the sustainability and rehabilitation of the settlements which are suitable for return migration and the development of policies and precautions in order to make the population who were subject to and drastically experienced the problems of the displacement productive for themselves and for the country and to collect the information related to the origin of displaced persons, their destinations, the quality and quantity of the displaced persons before and after the displacement in order to help the preparation of the plans that will be implemented towards selected rural settlements.  

 During the process of planning and conducting the survey, HIPS will work in cooperation with the related public agencies and international organizations while adopting a participative and transparent approach. Moreover, the NGOs which are already working on this issue will be contacted and information and opinion exchange will be ensured.

 According to the international definition, “internally displaced persons” are persons or group of persons who involuntarily left their home or habitual settlements especially as a result of or in order to protect themselves from the consequences of armed conflict, in general, any condition including violence, the violation of human rights or the natural or human-made disasters, and who have not crossed an internationally recognized state border (Source: United Nations Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement).

 The area embraced by this project will be the provinces covered by “Return to Villages and Rehabilitation Project”, which are Adıyaman, Ağrı, Batman, Bingöl, Bitlis, Diyarbakır, Elazığ, Hakkari, Mardin, Muş, Siirt, Şırnak, Tunceli and Van. However, data and information will also be collected for the settlements which received dense migration from these provinces. 

 In this project, information will be collected in detail on 1) the population migrated from the mentioned provinces, 2) socio-economic and demographic characteristics of the internally displaced persons (who are defined above), 3) sub-group population of the internally displaced persons who left the villages/settlements they were living in as a result of armed conflict in about last 20 years. The information on this sub-group including both the persons who returned to their villages and the persons who did not and continue their lives in cities will be collected. Moreover, special emphasis will be given to include both sexes to be represented as well as different age groups to be covered during the interviews with the internally displaced persons.

 As the first stage of the study, literature including various publications and reports is being reviewed in order to estimate the incidence/magnitude of internally displaced persons. Since the existing information sources do not authorize the direct estimation of this group of population, at this first stage, instead of analyzing only internally displaced persons, the immigration events in last 20 years will be analyzed and then, the portion of internally displaced persons will be estimated. In the later stages of the study, first, information and data on the internally displaced persons living in and out of the region will be collected by both using qualitative and quantitative approaches. After the completion of data collection in the field, the data will be entered into the computers and analyzed in order to prepare the report of the project. The project report will be announced to the related institutes and organizations in several meetings.

 Time table of the project is:

First stage: Existing information analysis and preliminary studies (December 2004- April 2005)

Second Stage: Qualitative Study (April- May 2005)

Third Stage: Quantitative Study (June- September 2005)

Fourth Stage: Report Preparation (October-December 2005) and Announcement of the findings (January- February 2006)

 The expected outcomes of the project are:

• New information (numeric, geographical distribution, demographic and socio-economic characteristics) related to the immigration events in Turkey in the last 20 years will be acquired at the end of new analyses of the existing data.  Proportion of internally displaced persons in the immigration events in the last 20 years will be estimated.
• As a result of qualitative and quantitative data collection activities, demographic and socio-economic characteristics of internally displaced persons and information on the migration process, cause and consequences of the migration and the social, economic, legal and cultural problems in the destination of or the settlements returned by the internally displaced persons will be presented.
• Final project report consisting of policy suggestions, which will lead the findings of both qualitative and quantitative surveys to contribute to the “Return to Villages and Rehabilitation Project” and to other future development projects in the region, will be prepared.

In the final report, there will be policy suggestions related to return, settlements and integration of the internally displaced persons and return migrants. Moreover, there will also be policy suggestions on the existence and sustainability of regional development policies and for diminishing the development gap between regions.

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