Displacement and modern slavery: Syrian agricultural labour under lockdown

For displaced Syrian communities in the Middle East, COVID-19 is not only a health crisis, but also an economic crisis. With no financial safety net, Syrian refugees working in farming are especially vulnerable to price hikes of food and public transport. Yet, we do not know how the pandemic has reshaped exploitative working conditions, and whether and how a bigger pool of cheap labour, the loss of jobs and humanitarian assistance increase Syrians' vulnerability to modern slavery during and after the pandemic. We need to understand how the social relations that underpin refugee labour, and bind displaced Syrians to middlemen and employers, are reorganised when global agricultural supply chains are interrupted by COVID-19 related border closures, and workers' mobility is restricted by local lockdowns.
This project brings together a multidisciplinary team of academics from the University of Edinburgh, and Syrian and Turkish academics and practitioners from our partners CARA Syria Programme and Development Workshop. Together, we have extensive experience with conducting policy-oriented ethnographic research with Syrian refugees in the Middle East. Our project investigates how humanitarian solutions could mitigate the impact of COVID-19 measures on displaced Syrians' vulnerability to modern slavery in agriculture in northern Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey.
Through our partners' trusted networks, our team reaches displaced people outside big cities and official camps, including in remote rural areas. In each study country, Syrian academic partners will conduct remote interviews with twenty displaced Syrian farmworkers, five agricultural middlemen and five farm owners. All study participants will also share pictures and videos of their living and working conditions. These remote "work diaries" will yield insights into respondents' daily routines, and the affective, social and cultural dimensions of work. Our Syrian academic partners will collect data using WhatsApp, a programme that most displaced Syrians are familiar with because they use it to stay in touch with loved ones and NGOs.
Through co-designing the research, and co-producing outputs, we aim to formulate practical and culturally sensitive humanitarian solutions to tackle modern slavery. The lack of a coordinated aid response at the regional level has turned Middle Eastern countries into a laboratory for fostering refugees' economic self-reliance. But refugee livelihoods programmes have had limited success because of their narrow economic focus, and because they fail to address displaced people's lack of rights. This research will reformulate the question: instead of producing more (exploitative) jobs for refugees in the Global South, how could humanitarian action create decent jobs, and, by extension, healthier and dignified lives? In the short term, our research will provide recommendations to frontline aid providers about how to tailor emergency aid to the conditions of refugee workers, and urge policymakers to extend support currently reserved for citizens. In the longer term, our research will inform humanitarian livelihood programmes to help refugees transition into decent employment, make them more resilient to economic shocks, and thus less vulnerable to modern slavery.
We recognize the power of individual stories, and their appeal to non-academic audiences. To minimize risks to refugees' privacy, case studies will be shared in a graphic novel. Through documenting Syrians' complex experiences of suffering, resistance and solidarity, the graphic novel will be a counter-point to victimising representations of refugees, and inspire more realistic portrayals in humanitarian marketing, the media, and academic writing and teaching.
In the long-term, our findings will inform advocacy aimed at policymakers that acknowledges displaced Syrians' contribution to host countries' economies, and strengthen their protection not only as refugees, but also as workers.