Anti-immigrant feeling among ethnic Russians, spurred in
part by concerns over Islamist militancy in the Caucuses and the Middle East,
has put a spotlight on Muslim migrants from across the region. Around 88
percent of Kyrgyzstan's population is Muslim.
1.5 million Kyrgyz – a fifth of the population – working in
Russia. Around 33 percent of Kyrgyzstan's GDP is attributed to remittances from
migrant workers in Russia, reflecting a regional dependence on Moscow that has
only increased since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The official number
of Kyrgyz migrants has remained roughly static despite the ruble’s decline, but
remittances fell to $1.367 billion for the first 11 months of 2014, compared to
$1.447 billion for the same period in 2013. Russia’s Federal Migration Service
(FMS) puts the number of documented Kyrgyz workers at around half a million,
but experts believe at least another million work there without proper permits,
mostly in the construction or service industries.
Laws regulating migrant workers in Russia have become
increasingly restrictive in recent years. In January, new rules made it more
difficult to obtain work permits and easier for the authorities to find and
deport undocumented workers. New arrivals have 30 days to register their
residence, obtain a certification of their skills for their desired industry,
translate their passport into Russian, find medical insurance, pass a medical
examination, and pass an exam on Russia’s language, history and laws. It's a daunting process, and even if you get
all your paperwork in order, Russian administration is often unable to cope
with the backlog. On 7 April, a migrant worker from Tajikistan died at a
processing centre in Moscow after spending two days in line with nearly 5,000 other
applicants. Violators are added to a blacklist, a database of migrants set up
in January 2013 for those found to be breaking administrative rules in Russia
and subject to deportation. Around 60,000 Kyrgyzstan nationals are currently on
the list.
The migrants have long been targets of labour exploitation
and sexual abuse, and now, in a Russia increasingly tense about terrorism,
xenophobic attacks are on the rise. Falling oil prices and international
sanctions over the war in Ukraine have taken a heavy toll on the Russian
economy. The ruble lost 68 percent of its value against the US dollar in 2014,
occasionally trading at less than the Kyrgyzstani som.
Next month as Kyrgyzstan formally joins the EEU, forming a
unified economic bloc with Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Armenia. In
addition to the dropping of trade tariffs, the accession agreements assure the
“free movement of labour” within the union. “This means our migrants will not
have to pass this very complicated procedure of obtaining a (visa), and will be
on the same level of competition as Russian natives,” said Tatiana Zlobina, a
researcher at the American University of Central Asia in Bishkek.
Nurbek Umarov, a researcher with the International Organization
for Migration in Bishkek, shares such concerns.
“Labour migration depends on the laws of supply and demand,”
he explained. “Because employers will have to employ citizens of the EEU under
the same terms as a Russian citizen, it may no longer be profitable for them,
so those employers who practised illegal employment in the past may switch
their attention to migrants from other countries, say Uzbekistan.”
An estimated 2.2 million Uzbeks work in Russia, and
Uzbekistan is not slated to join the EEU. Accession into the new bloc is also
unlikely to stem hostility to the Kyrgyz among ethnic Russians.
“Even if some legal protection is available (after
accession), the situation is complicated by rising xenophobia in Russia,” said
Aida Baijumenova, a researcher with the Kyrgyz rights group Bir Duino who
regularly interviews migrant workers in Russia.
“We have found that to the police and many Russians, Uzbeks, Kyrgyz,
Tajiks all look the same.”
http://www.irinnews.org/report/101398/hope-and-fear-kyrgyz-migrants-in-russia
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