Saving migrants from enslavement of employers

Interview by Daria Melikhova exclusively to Vestnik Kavkaza

Yesterday the business ombudsman Boris Titov proposed holding a “migration amnesty” – mass legalization of illegal migrants. He hopes that if the labor market is liberalized and migrants are not expelled, these people will follow Russian laws and fill the Russian budget.

A member of the Public Chamber of Russia, Aslambek Paskachev, told Vestnik Kavkaza about his views on the fight against illegal migration. According to him, there are two global issues which are connected with foreign and internal migration.

“As for foreign migration, in Russia migrants from the former Soviet Union are from Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Ukraine and Belarus. But the main problems occur with migrants from Central Asia,” Paskachev thinks.

According to him, some people are forced to be illegal migrants, others want to be illegal: “Our task is to cut the ground from under those people who make others be illegal migrants and benefit from this. To do this, we have to change radically the labor permission system for migrants and launch the obligation that a migrant has to have a contract with an employer when he comes to Russia.”

An employer should be responsible for migrants’ registration, medical insurance if treatment is needed, and expelling them if the migrants commit crimes.

However, according to Paskachev, “minor businesses are not interested in illegal migrants because the fee of 800 thousand rubles is a huge sum for them. They avoid this, fear this. But as for major business, 800 thousand or 8 million are a gnat-sting for them, when it concerns thousands of workers. So, the policy should be stiffened: the first violation – 800 thousand per person; the second violation – shutting the business down; the third violation – criminal punishment for enslavement, for instance. Illegal migrants working in slavish conditions, this concerns both internal and external migrants. The camp in Galyanovo was a paradise for them, because previously they lived in awful conditions.”

Speaking about August raids by the Moscow police, Paskachev noted: “One-time raids won’t bring results. We need a system of measures. We have to prepare a system of registration, some plastic card which would contain information about a migrant; so we could follow his location.”

Paskachev thinks that proposed measures will be beneficial to everyone: “It will bring tax inflows. It is beneficial to you and me because we won’t pay for this. It is beneficial to migrants because their rights are secured, and they will gain more money. But their native countries should take part in the process. We have agreements with Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, there are Russian language centers, but it’s not enough.”

Paskachev is sure that economy won’t do without migrants: “We have a deep demographic gap. At the same time, we should fight for the best migrants, more professional and prepared. We should realize that other countries will do the same, so we need to put it in order.”

As for internal migration, Paskachev believes that “first of all, it concerns labour-intensive regions of the North Caucasus, republics and labour-lacking regions of the Central Russia and especially the Far East. Some measures are taken, but they are not enough. We need our citizens to go there, because it is necessary for our country.”