"Varorud" newspaper multiple times drew attention to organizational issues concerned with the migrational service of the country highlighting objectively in all details the problems of migration and our mardikors. Presuming that the experience of any organization or region is of importance in reference to this universal problem we asked our correspondent in Osh to prepare material on this topic from the neighboring province of Kyrgyzstan.
According to non-official data (and as for precise ones nobody has them) no less than half million Kyrgyzstan citizens - each tenth resident of the country - has to earn his/her living beyond the boundaries of the fatherland. The major part of these people sojourn abroad on an illegal basis. Bereft of any social protection many of them are subjected to merciless exploitation on the part of employers, to humiliations and persecutions exercised by all sorts of extorters and controlling organs as well.
According to the data presented by the director of the Department for migrational service under KR MFA Zafar Khakimov the basic stream of laboring migrants befalls the natives of the southern region of the country. And though official Bishkek started to take measures aimed at regulation of laboring relations with Kazakhstan and Russia - to where migrants go mostly - and also with some other far abroad countries many problems are unsettled yet.
- I was a real slave there, - retells Kalil Matkerimov, aged 32, residing in Nookat rayon, Osh province. - I broke free of miracle, my boss took away my passport for so-called debts, i.e. for meals, I was watched by an overseer. Together with my country-men I confided in illegal recruiters". He was conveyed to South Kazakhstan in the group numbering half hundred young dekhans. The tobacco plantator didn't conclude any treaty with them. They worked like horses for promised 6 thousand tenges (about $40) during a month from dawn to dusk. But very few of them received the promised money.
Builder Momunbek Nazarbekov, aged 28, every spring sets out to Samara oblast in Russia. He has his own brigade of masons and interior decorators. They build erections from the very beginning up to the very end when keys are handed in to owners, they lay both foundation and cover roofs with slate. "We are lucky: every season we earn up to 2 thousand dollars, - he doesn't conceal his joy. - But to say the truth, we give away a part of the earned to mediators, to militia in order it didn't bother us. Many counterparts of ours don't leave enclosed construction sites for months - in avoidance of diverse mischief".
A year ago the Southern regional managerial office on migration service being assisted by the International Organization on migration conducted a research in three provinces of the region (Osh, Jalal-Abad, Batken). They explored 1800 yards. It was ascertained that almost two thirds of inhabitants were outside the region making their living. Thus, at the Russian market of labor there is a great demand for builders of different specialties (only about ten brigades from Osh left for Russia this year on direct agreements with job-givers), agricultural workers, cooks of Oriental kitchen. New Russians value gardeners, home maids from Central Asian republics - the formers being unpretentious in domestic life, conscientious and cheap - the last factor is the principal one.
In Kazakhstan there work six-seven thousand people only from Nookat rayon. According to non-official data about 50 thousand our citizens work in this country; as KR MFA migration service reports, only 1.7 thousand persons enjoy migrant's status. Over 400 thousand laborers work in Russia. According to RF MIA information only 80 thousand are registered in visa and registration departments; about 5 thousand having an official permit for laboring activity.
From time to time tragic news come to the motherland either from migrants or about migrants: "killed", "perished", "outraged", "criminal clashes", "being missing". - Very rare years do without such extraordinary incidents, - tells aksakal Abdykadir Musabayev from Bazar-Korgon rayon, Jalal-Abad province. Last year three "freights-200" came to our small aiyil Akman. Now families are afraid of dismissing their breadwinners for strange lands. And what is to be done? One has to support children, but there is no job at home.
- Not infrequently money becomes an occasion for cruel shorts shrifts, - says Azimzhan Askarov, employee of the local correspondent unit of "Justice" social organization for human rights advocacy. - Criminal groups do know that a Gastarbeiter returns home not with empty hands. They catch him on the way, at railway stations, hotels. Recently one migrant transpired in Bazar-Korgon being missing for a long time, relatives had despaired already to see him in flesh. It turned out that he had been reaching his home for a year being dispossessed of all his resources and beaten cruelly by unknown bandits. He did all the chores at farms to earn money for returning home and buying some presents for relatives.
In the opinion of local official Khaldarzhan Shamsuddinov, the matter is that people are badly informed and they are law-disobedient. Not infrequently they even don't register their departure at the passport office. Kh. Shamsuddinov stands for close collaboration of local organs of self-governance, employment services and militia. Why not exchange information on a regular basis - where did people leave for? How many people were in the group? For what time? What professions enjoy demands? - he questioned. It's not for nothing that Frederic Shene, vicarious chief of the mission under IOM stressed the importance of a reinforced collaboration between state bodies and civil sector in reference to laboring migration regulation. And many people agree with it. Quoting Zafar Khakimov, for the latest two years the government of Kyrgyzstan has been conducting active negotiations with Russia and Kazakhstan and also with some far abroad countries on regulation of laboring migration processes. Kyrgyzstan enters the labor market of developed countries as well. About thousand workers will be sent to South Korea on the agreement with this country, - Z. Khakimov informed. Hereby he expressed anxiety as for the activity of the firms being not privy to this agreement. Last year for illegal conveyance of labor force abroad the leaders of ten similar firms were brought before the bar by law enforcement bodies of Kyrgyzstan .
Kyrgyzstan being one of the smallest Central Asian republics becomes the biggest purveyor of cheap labor force per capita. The country intends to do no small dividends on that business of both economic and social aspects attracting solid currency infusions of Gastarbeiter and reducing the acuteness of unemployment problem. In the nearest years the country is likely to export qualified labor force - the number of higher schools increased ten times for the years of independence. But still these prospects are declarable. Realia of life tell another thing: no few efforts, resources and time are required to adjust the respective mechanism of regulation concerned with the processes of outward migration, engrafting civilization relations into real life.