An Initiative in İzmir to Help Refugees in Their Legal Problems

We interviewed attorney Derman Güler about their voluntary initiative called ‘Legal Klinik İzmir’.

Could you give a brief information about your initiative?

The refugee issue is one of the most important realities of our times. A few years ago, many of the people in our society did not know there was such an issue. We are now closer with the refugee issue due to the war in Syria. However, Turkey has always been a shelter, a transfer gate for refugees even before the war in Syria. The number of refugees were, of course, much less than now. That’s why, Turkey did not have many plans. Now, with the war in Syria, Turkey has become a country which hosts most of the refugees. Along with the state, civil society was not prepared for it. A few of the associations operating in the field tried to adopt themselves to the current situation. We also decided to establish a civil initiative called “Legal Klinik İzmir” to help Syrian refugees in their legal

Who works for “Legal Klinik İzmir”? Where do you operate?

It consists of a group volunteers many of whom are lawyers. There are volunteers who help us with translation, announcements, health and clothing support. But of course, our main aim here is to help refugees receive free legal counselling. We plan to organize informative seminars on sexual health and domestic violence, too. There are expert psychologists, sociologists and lawyers which organizes this mass educational seminars. We operate in TİAFİ refugee center’s building in Tepecik.