Browsing by Subject "refugees"

This master’s thesis examines the themes of integration and social support and their interconnectedness, through the experiences of young adults with refugee or asylum seeker background. This thesis was driven by a desire to discover what makes integration processes successful and what are the first-hand experiences of these processes. The thesis was driven by research questions asking whether social support equaled to a more successful integration, what kind of values were given to support practices and whether interviewees perceived support being available to them. The data for this study was produced through five personal interviews with young adults aged between 19-28 who have all migrated to Finland in the years 2015-2016. The data produced by these interviews is not meant to be used as a generalization of a larger group, rather to depict the personal experiences of those interviewed. The data was analyzed using thematic content analysis. Through the means of thematic content analysis four themes and one sub-theme was recognized: Support – in all its forms – is valued, (sub-theme) Safe integration experience vanished in adulthood, In between feelings of Finnishness and residence permit, Feelings of the other and finally, Freedom of belief as a new constant. The findings of this study indicate that no causal connection can be drawn between social support and successful integration, integration processes just like the people going through these experiences are unique and every process and the needs for support looks different. However, all those who had access to social support during their integration felt to have benefitted from it and put great deal of weight and gratitude towards received support.

Migration, which can be characterized as a temporal or permanent movement of individuals or groups of people from one geographic location to another, is old as humanity itself. As a part of polyethnic states and as a polyethnic state itself, Ukrainians have had strong connections across the borders and migration has been an integral part of life and in present-day Europe, Ukrainians form one of the largest migrant groups around Europe. The main type of migration changed from economic migration to forced migration when the Russian Federation launched a full-scale attack on Ukraine on 24th of February 2022 which caused a massive influx of migrants to European countries. In this master’s thesis, I studied the effect of existing social networks on refugees’ destination choices, and the aim was to examine how the migration of Ukrainians to Europe after the outbreak of full-scale war is linked to the existing Ukrainian minority population in Europe and to the spatial distribution of Ukrainian social interactions with European countries. In addition to this, the aim was also to evaluate the use of novel big data sources, such as Twitter and Meta, and assess how they can provide new insights into studying migration. The first part of the analysis explored the strength of the relationship between existing Ukrainian minorities in EU countries and social connectedness. The second part of the analysis explored further the strength of the relationship over time between the number of refugees in the EU, social connectedness, and distance from Ukraine, and also the spatial distribution of Ukrainian refugees within the EU area. Third, the strength of the relationship was explored over time between social connectedness and the number of Ukrainian Twitter users in Europe. Last, Twitter data was analyzed to get insights into the Twitter use of Ukrainians and how the change in language use is connected to the refugee movement. Results show that high social connectedness values between Ukraine and other European countries are the result of an existing Ukrainian minority in countries. When analyzing the relationship between the refugee movement in 2022 and social connectedness, results suggest that the migration movement is connected to the existing social networks which can be demonstrated by the social connectedness index. The social connectedness index proves to predict quite accurately the mobility of Ukrainians. User information from Twitter data didn’t perform that well in analyses at least on the country level. However, on the regional level, the relationship between Twitter users and the social connectedness index yielded some better results with a moderate relationship in some months. Insights about overall Twitter usage also showed patterns of increased Twitter activity of Ukrainians in the EU and decreased Twitter activity in Ukraine after the invasion. However, in addition to the location of the users and overall activity, language use analyzed from Twitter data also provided insights about linguistic change from Russian to Ukrainian and the use of Ukrainian, Russian, and English in European countries. However, language use analysis didn’t provide significant support for assessing the dependencies between the number of refugees and language use. This thesis explored further the capabilities of the use of the social connectedness index in migration studies and also showed some of the weaknesses of social media-based big data in mobility-related studies.

The humanitarian crisis caused by the Syrian civil war has resulted in millions becoming refugees, most of whom are women and girls. Out of all countries, Lebanon hosts the largest number of refugees per capita. Lebanese policies have been generally marked by state absenteeism and the exclusion of Syrians. The policies together with the economic crisis in Lebanon have resulted in most of the refugees living in the country informally and in dire socioeconomic situation. The objective of this thesis is to look at gender-based violence against Syrian refugee women and girls in Lebanon through a feminist political economy framework. This is done through analyzing interviews conducted with Lebanese experts and triangulating the data with existing academic and non-academic research. The Lebanese exclusionary policies, the political economy of the country, and the patriarchal structures expose Syrian women to socioeconomic violence and create a pool of people who are vulnerable to exploitation, violence, and unfree labour. Said factors also lead to resorting to negative coping strategies, such as survival sex, child marriage, and entering precarious work conditions. There is an interconnection of acceptance of violence, patriarchal norms, and institutional structures that all heighten the risk of IPV for Syrian refugee women. While women feel empowered by their access to resources through work, the risk of IPV grows as men are unable to fulfil their roles as the ideal masculine breadwinner and develop violent masculinities as an answer to marginalization. Syrian families, and sometimes girls themselves, resort to child marriage to seek protection and ease the financial constraints, which further keeps girls in the cycle of poverty and violence. Syrian women and girls face multiple forms of gender-based violence in Lebanon. The violence has a material basis which is accelerated by the socioeconomic situation and Lebanon's approach to the refugee crisis. The patriarchal structures that persist in the Syrian and Lebanese societies heighten women's vulnerability to violence and normalise it. The socioeconomic situation and the patriarchal values are upheld by the state policies and structures that fail to provide adequate protection to refugees and women, leading to marginalisation and giving space to actors, such as employers and landlords, who use the situation for their own benefit. Instead of looking at violence women and girls face as separate incidents, it is more useful to look at the continuums of violence that are present in the Syrian women and girls’ lives.

This study analyses the refugees’ activity during the integration period in Finland within the framework of acts of citizenship proposed by the British theorist Engin Isin. The purpose is to investigate what acts of citizenship refugees perform to constitute themselves as citizens and what factors prevent them from pursuing acts of citizenship as well as to examine the influence of moving to the Capital region on constituting refugees as citizens. The method of qualitative interview is used for this study. Thirteen interviews, including two paired ones, were conducted between June and October 2019. The interviewees were selected among the clients of the Immigrant Services of the city of Espoo on the criterion of moving to this city after living in another municipality outside the Capital Region of Finland. The results show that during their integration process, refugees are focused on performing the following acts that enable them to constitute themselves as citizens: Finnish language learning, job search, political activity and establishment of social relations. The analysis also shows that the lack of integration conditions outside the Finnish Capital Region and difficulties in obtaining available social services prevent refugees from constituting themselves as citizens during their integration. This research points to the differences in integration conditions in different regions of Finland and brings to the conclusion that although there are organizations providing guidance on access to the Finnish social security system, the understanding of Finnish bureaucracy among the refugee population remains a big challenge. The study also demonstrates that refugees are not passive, but rather put an effort to improve their situation, take the initiative, and thus change the common perception of a refugee.

The thesis is a study of the communicated case ‘S.S. and the Others v. Italy’ (application no. 21660/80) of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). The application is on behalf of the victims of an incident in which a migrant boat found itself in distress after having left Libya for Europe. The Libyan Coast Guard failed to rescue all of the migrants and allegedly acted negligently, mistreating those they took onboard, and returned them to Libya, exposing them to continued ill-treatment and some of them also to forced return (refoulement) to their countries of origin. Italy is a State Party to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), and has a bilateral agreement, ‘Memorandum of Understanding’ (MoU), with Libya (a non-ECHR State). On the basis of the MoU, Italy funds and equips the Libyan Coast Guard. The agreement can be seen as a means to ‘outsource’ border control and to instruct Libya to intercept migrants before they reach Italy and the European Union (EU), thus effectively circumventing the obligations of the ECHR. The research question is in two parts. First, I ask whether Italy had extraterritorial jurisdiction as stated in Article 1 ECHR, and second, if it had, has Italy violated its positive obligations to secure the applicants’ rights. Jurisdiction is a ‘threshold criterium’ for the Court to study the merits of an application. As for the violations, the thesis focuses on Article 2 (right to life) and Article 3 (prohibition of torture; includes also the prohibition of forced return, or refoulement). The methodology is doctrinal in that the thesis aims to examine critically the central features of the relevant legislation and case law in order to create an arguably correct and sufficiently complete statement on the Court’s reasoning and outcome. The main sources are the provisions of the ECHR itself and the relevant previous case law of the Court, together with a literature review. Additionally, there are third-party interveners’ statements and a video reconstruction of the events. The Court’s questions and information requests to the parties, as attached to the application, are used as a starting point. Besides a hypothesis of the argumentation and the decision of the Court, some estimations are made about what could be the consequences of the decision to such bilateral pacts as the MoU between Italy and Libya, and, in general, to ‘deals’ between the EU Member States and third or transit countries. Finally, the thesis reflects on the eventual repercussions on the topical issue of the EU Commission’s 23.9.2020 proposal for the New Pact on Migration and Asylum, which appears to encourage the Member States to maintain and develop outsourcing practices.

Migration has increased exponentially since WWII. According to the World Bank in 2016, economic remittances sent from developed countries to developing countries have increased from $ 31.1 billion in 1990 to $ 441 billion in 2016. There is therefore a link between migration and economic remittances. The debate on the positive and negative effects of migration has swayed back and forth over the years. The effect of remittances on the development of a country is likewise a contested issue. Remittances can have both positive and negative impact. This thesis compares the lived experiences of Somalis in Finland with the theory of New Economics of Labour Migration theory (NELM). NELM views migration as an economic strategy of a household. The household invests in the migration of one or several members to other destinations where the migrant can work and send economic remittances to the household. The household uses migration as a strategy to overcome market restraints in the domestic economy. NELM has been criticised for being unable to account for the cause of migration when it comes to forced migration. It has also been criticised for seeing economic remittances to be the purpose of migration and for linking migration necessarily to development. Others have argued that remittances might not be the purpose of migration at the onset and migrants might not always send remittances. In this thesis, NELM has been broken down into seven assumptions that it relies on. The assumptions have been compared with the experiences Somalis in Finland where the interview questions have focused on the seven assumptions made in NELM. The empirical material have been gathered by using a semi-structured interview method. This thesis is therefore a qualitative study. To strengthen the findings a literature study of Somali history and of the academic discourse regarding the developmental effects of remittances have been included. The main conclusions of this study is that the decision to migrate is made by a household or community and not only by an individual. This is in accordance with NELM. However, the study shows that intra-household relations are an important aspect in the decision-making process. The power of deciding who can migrate and who cannot varies greatly. The empirical evidence shows that the unit of deciding and enabling a migrant’s migration varies along the flight trajectory. The decision to migrate, and the help to do so, is made jointly but not always by the same people. It also shows that when Somalis fled from Somalia as many as possible from the immediate family where enabled to leave. However, at the primary flight destination only few where enabled to migrate further according to the financial possibilities available. This thesis shows that NELM is unable to explain the cause of migration from Somalia but is able to explain the cause of migration from the primary destinations. Migrants found peace but no means of livelihood and therefore they had to migrate further. The empirical evidence shows that the purpose of migration is not to enable a migrant to send remittances but to seek safety, a new livelihood and to enhance the capabilities of the household left behind. The findings in this thesis suggest that the migrants sought to help their families in any way that they could after they arrived to Finland. Primarily, to help left-behind family members to migrate and by sending economic remittances. However, both options were not available for all the informants. Only the latter, sending remittances, was possible for all. The empirical evidence shows that all of the informants sent remittances. The purpose of migration differs from NELM but does support the view that migration is linked to development. This study suggests that the cost-benefit calculation of whether to migrate or not needs to be made visible in NELM. In addition to that, it needs to be enlarged to include an understanding of how migrants take into account the different kinds of societies that they aim for and how different types of immigration avenues grant different possibilities at these destinations. The restrictions of migration and integration are therefore crucial in understanding the choices migrants do. Furthermore, a better understanding of different types of capital needed for migration should be included in a theory that explains the link between forced migration and remittances. The thesis arrives to the same conclusions as NELM in assuming that there is an implicit family agreement of co-insurance that the migrants and the household rely on. It also arrives at the same conclusions for how remittances are used by the household and the developmental effect they have. NELM assumes that migration at large ends when there is sufficient market structures and this thesis supports that view. However, there cannot be a functioning market without peace and a functioning state. In the end, a new theory is proposed: the Economic Livelihood Migration Theory that is a further development of NELM but specifically aimed at explaining forced migration.