| dc.description.abstract | During our research as IPC-Mercator Fellows, the
issue of gender-specific barriers affecting Syrian
refugee women’s access to healthcare was highlighted by many civil society organizations active
in refugee support in Istanbul. As an intersection
of our respective research projects,1
we organized
the roundtable workshop “Healthcare Access for
Syrian Refugees: A Gender-Sensitive Perspective”
held at Istanbul Policy Center on May 4, 2018. The
workshop brought together various stakeholders
who are active, voluntarily or professionally, in
support of refugee communities in Turkey. Most
have extensive experience related to the healthcare
system or in supporting refugees to reach healthcare services in Istanbul.
This report will present the results of the half-day
workshop and propose concrete, policy-relevant
recommendations on how to facilitate Syrian
refugees’ and especially refugee women’s access to
healthcare services in Turkey.
The workshop was designed to leverage participants’ expertise to discuss the gender-specific
problems and barriers facing Syrian refugee women
in reaching healthcare services, continuing service
gaps, and ongoing initiatives to facilitate refugees’
access to healthcare. The workshop aimed to
develop constructive recommendations that are
based on evaluations from the field about the problems refugees face in accessing healthcare services
and how to improve refugee and healthcare policy
and overall accessibility. The workshop was an
opportunity for participants to exchange and share
1 Souad Osseiran’s research project in the framework of the 2017/18
Mercator IPC Fellowship is titled “Syrian Healthcare Professionals’
Integration in Turkey: Altering Formulations of Turkish Citizenship.”
Gabriele Cloeters’ research is titled “Gendered Aspects of Migration
in Turkey: Approaches of Civil Society Organizations towards Female
Syrian Refugees.”
ideas as well as offering participants the chance to
network.2
The workshop discussions were held in
Turkish, Arabic, and English with simultaneous
interpretation. The simultaneous interpretation
was an avenue for participants to communicate
with each other and engage with the knowledge of
other experts in the field, especially as this exchange
is not always possible due to language barriers.
The roundtable workshop included 19 participants
representing a broad variety of key stakeholder positions including Syrian and Turkish NGO members,
community center representatives, independent
public health experts and medical professionals
working in Istanbul, and academics conducting
research in the field. | en_US |
