Turkey has become a receiver of legal and illegal migrants, particularly women, as a result of the political and economic turmoil in the regions surrounding it since the 1990s. Every year, thousands of people – mostly women – enter Turkey from post-Soviet republics and overstay their tourist visas in order to engage in informal wage work, sex work, or small-scale trade.

Women from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bulgaria, Georgia, Moldova, Romania, Russia, and the Ukraine enter Turkey in search of informal work in small-scale production (for example garment…