Refugees in Iraq: Access to Work and Stable Livelihoods

RESPOND Policy Brief [2021/12]

Authors: William Warda - Hammurabi Human Rights Organization | Dr. Hamed Shihab - University of Baghdad

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Iraq has attracted migrants since ancient times for a number of reasons: its cultural richness since the days of Babylon, Assyria and Nineveh, its natural resources, including oil, phosphates and sulfur, and abundant agriculture and livestock thanks to its two great rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates. However, the scale of mass migrations over the centuries never approached levels seen starting in 2011, when waves of Syrian refugees fleeing violence and armed conflict began to arrive in Iraq.

The Iraqi Ministry of Migration and Displacement and other sources agree that Iraq currently hosts at least 300,000 refugees.  These include Palestinians, Sudanese, Iranians, Kurds from Turkey, and Ahwazis of Arab ancestry. Syrian refugees constitute the largest number, at more than 250,000. 97% of Syrians reside in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, with 38% living in refugee camps distributed in four Iraqi governorates, namely Anbar and the Kurdistan governorates of Erbil, Dohuk and Sulaymaniyah. The remaining 62% have acquired temporary residence and required security approvals; most live in urban and rural homes, and have the right to work, along with access to health and education services. Women and children constitute about 75% of all these refugees, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

This policy brief provides an overview about refugees’ access to employment in Iraq, and the challenges that refugees, especially Syrians face. Our findings rely on the expertise, experiences and practices of the refugees themselves and other stakeholders, who have been interviewed as part of the “Respond” project. This report also compares requirements and different standards set at different government administrative levels with actual experiences, in order to better deal with these situations in the future.

The mass migrations that began in 2011 were the greatest in Iraq’s modern history and reached their peak in 2014 and 2015, with the commencement of Daesh offensive operations in Iraq. This migration did not stop in the years that followed, but still abated significantly at the end of 2019 and beginning of 2020.  While this period is outside the temporal framework of the “Respond” project itself, more than 19,000 Syrian refugees entered Iraqi territory, following Turkish military operations in Northeastern Syria. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated conditions for refugees in 2020.  The response, which included a full lockdown of persons in camps and residences and draconian movement restrictions, almost completely extinguished work opportunities and state services for refugees.

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