Afghan Migrants Seek A Better Life At A Turkish Tea Plantation

An Afghan migrant worker harvests tea leaves on the slopes of the Hopa district of Artvin, Turkey, on July 6.

Decades of conflict, natural disasters, and economic challenges have fueled poverty across all segments of Afghanistan's society, resulting in people struggling to earn a living.
 

An Afghan migrant carries a sack filled with tea leaves up a slope in the Hopa district.

Around half of Afghanistan's 40 million people are acutely food insecure, according to the United Nations, with 6 million on the brink of starvation. With many Afghans desperate to feed their families, hundreds of thousands have fled their homeland to find work in neighboring countries.
 

An Afghan places sacks filled with tea leaves to be weighed and checked at a buying center.

Turkey continues to host the largest number of refugees worldwide, as the number of people forcibly displaced across the world due to conflict, violence, and persecution hits record levels.

Sitting among the tea leaves, Afghan migrants take a lunch break during the harvest season.

Of the estimated 300,000 Afghans residing in Turkey, 183,000 are officially registered, and the remainder are undocumented. While officially registered refugees qualify for health care, thousands of undocumented immigrants are not eligible.

During the first decade of the 21st century, Georgians made up the bulk of the seasonal workers on Turkey's tea plantations. However, the plummeting Turkish lira in recent years has made this seasonal work less attractive to Georgians.

An Afghan who has been living in Turkey for the past three years said that though the work of tea harvesting is hard, he can earn 1,400–1,500 liras ($54) a day. This equates to over a quarter of the average monthly income in Afghanistan.

Domestic tourists are served tea during their visit to a tea plantation in Trabzon.

With a cost-of-living crisis, dwindling foreign reserves, and the lira reaching record lows, Ankara has been pushing tens of thousands of Afghans back at its land border with Iran or deporting them directly to Afghanistan.

 

The owner of the tea plantation in Rize displays a banner of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has been in office for 20 years.

As the country’s longest-serving leader, Erdogan successfully used the opposition’s aggressive anti-immigration stance to gain new voters and win another term earlier this year.

 

The increase in deportations is likely attributable, at least in part, to Turkish public opinion running against refugees and immigrants. In a 2021 survey conducted by Avrasya Research Company to gauge Turkish public opinion on Afghans, Syrians, Iraqis, and asylum seekers, 76 percent of respondents agreed with the statement that "the entrance of these people to Turkey must be prevented and they have to be deported urgently."


 

A couple wearing traditional attire takes selfies in a tea field where Afghan migrants have replaced Georgian workers.