11/28/2005

Now numbering close to 300,000 persons, stateless Kurds in Syria, many of whom can trace their ancestry in Syria to the early twentieth century, find themselves in a state of hopeless invisibility.   This now protracted problem began in 1962, when the Syrian government conducted a census of the Kurds living in Syria in an attempt to identify “foreign infiltrators” from Turkey and Arabize the predominantly Kurdish and resource rich northeastern region of the country. In the process, many Kurds either lost their Syrian nationality or never had their nationality recognized. 

A large number of Kurds who lost their nationality at this time did not fall within the parameters of recent immigrants from Turkey, but were rendered stateless nonetheless.  Statelessness in Syria means living on the margins of society and struggling to survive on a daily basis.  The lack of nationality results in thousands of Kurds having differential or no access at all to education, health care, government employment, most professional work, travel documents, and the registration of families, marriages, and property.

Having few options to ensure basic survival, many stateless Kurds seek opportunities abroad by leaving the country illegally on their own, paying money to contacts in government, or by enlisting the services of human smuggling operations.  One source estimated that up to 50,000 Kurds have left Syria, the majority of whom are stateless. While no official statistics are available, it is said that most families have had at least one member smuggled to another country.  It is also believed that the numbers of people leaving the country increased after the 2004 Kurdish uprising.  Foreign officials confirm that individuals making asylum requests say they use smugglers and traffickers to arrange their departures.

With no travel documents, individuals take tremendous risks attempting to leave Syria, entrusting their safety to extensive human smuggling networks and paying sums between SYP 150,000 and 600,000 (US$3,000 to 12,000) per person.  Those with sufficient funds are better able to secure travel documents more quickly, while those who cannot afford the higher prices may be forced to take greater chances and endure lengthy delays in the process.  Organizers sometimes wait until they have amassed groups of between 50 and 100 people, before moving them by plane, ship, or overland. These individual Kurds risk death, deportation, and imprisonment as consequences. Many have died at sea in shipwrecks or while detained in prisons. 

One stateless family, who was caught in Cyprus and deported back to Syria, spent more than three months in prison before they could bribe their way out.  Another man spent a year and a half in prison upon his deportation back to Syria, where he was tortured and rumored to have been killed. A  young student, Khaled, knows of a family with five children who went with people smugglers to Egypt and were left stranded there for six months until they agreed to pay the smugglers SYP 1 million (US$20,000) to go to Europe.  They were afraid to return to Syria because they feared arrest and prolonged detention.
 
One woman, Layla, described how a man she knew went with people smugglers to Australia:  “On the way, he was shipwrecked and left on an island with twenty-five other people and with little food or water for fourteen days.  Not knowing the duration of their stay, they carefully rationed the small quantity of goods they had. They knew that they were going to die and began digging their graves by hand.  A short time later, they were rescued by an Australian pilot who happened to be flying over the island and caught sight of them.”

Some stateless Kurds attempt to leave the country with false passports in order to study and practice professions. Mohammed was able to obtain a Syrian passport with a SYP 1 million bribe that he paid to the government.  Ahmed explained how his son plans to use people smugglers to get to Germany because he has a medical license but is unable to practice legally as a doctor in Syria. Refugees International spoke with Selima who described how her brother went to Kazakhstan to study dentistry.  He purchased an Iraqi passport for US$200, added his photo, and left Syria.  He is now unable to return to Syria because the false passport has expired.  RI learned of another Kurd, Hani, who went to Russia on an illegal passport to study medicine and received a license to practice.  He returned to Syria and was arrested at the border.  His family had to pay hefty bribes for his release.

Some of the returnees are people who have the red cards issued to “foreigners” after the 1962 census, but escaped from Syria, sought political asylum in Europe, were rejected for refugee status, and then deported back to Syria where they were reportedly detained and tortured.  One man, deported from Germany after a failed asylum application, was sentenced to two years in prison by the high security court and severely tortured.  The average length of detention for seeking political asylum abroad was reported to be three to six months.  Another man died on the road while fleeing Syria, and the government refused to allow his body to be returned to his family in Syria.

All of these examples highlight the tremendous risks that stateless Kurds are willing to take, having so few options in their own country.  Human smuggling and trafficking from Syria to neighboring countries, Australia, Europe, and even the U.S. is a growing industry that thrives on the desperation of so many people at a high cost to their personal security and safety. 

While traditional responses to human trafficking and smuggling have emerged from a crime control paradigm of cracking down on smuggling operations, a more effective way of ameliorating the problem is to attack it at its base.  Refugees International believes that reinstating the nationality of those denationalized Kurds and their descendants who were deprived of it in the 1962 census would save lives and weaken the industry in Syria by addressing the root causes of these desperate moves.  Having legal status would enable Kurds to live and work in Syria as fully integrated members of society, rather than living on the margins and struggling to access even basic services, health care, education, and an employment.  Such action would also go a long way to demonstrate Syria’s stated commitment to human rights and justice.