By Vestnik Kavkaza
A week ago a major special operation was conducted in Moscow, when the police arrested more than thousand illegal migrants from the CIS and other foreign countries. The mass mopping-up operations in Moscow revealed not only moral and ethic problems, but also practical issues of adaptation of migrants. In July this year a three-year plan to implement the strategy was adopted, in which there are 12 chapters, they in general correlate with the main directions of the Strategy of the State Ethnic Policy. One of the areas is the creation of conditions for the successful integration and adaptation of migrants. According to Alexander Zhuravskii, director of the department of state policy in the sphere of inter-ethnic relations at the Ministry of Regional Development, “illegal migration is bad, it's a negative thing, but controlled migration, migration from the point of view of using the migration potential of labor markets, is a reality. There is a real need for it, including in the economy.
Conditions will be created for the financial support of public initiatives and the public sector that support social adaptation and integration of migrants, migrants in the broadest sense. A separate area is a state program to assist the voluntary resettlement of compatriots from abroad… 40 subjects of the Russian Federation at the end of last year took part in it, now new regional programs are being adopted. The government has already approved 30 programs. 9 more regional programs are being approved by the government now. And on these state programs compatriots will come to Russia. Already there is a flow of people. This year, according to the participants of the state program, before December 31, 2012, about 15, 000 people have already moved.”
“Adaptation and integration of migrants, of course, the issue is very complex, it is multi-faceted,” Tatyana Dmitrieva, head of the department on work with national communities of the FMS of Russia, Moscow, thinks. “All migrants, and it is a huge community of people, and each of them chooses his own strategy of adaptation. Of course, we strive to ensure that this strategy leads to integration. Our task is to make migrants integrate into Russian society. This does not imply a rejection of their culture, or their national identity, but on the contrary, when you keep your national identity, while at the same time there is acceptance of the standards and norms of the host society.”
“I am very pleased that the strategy has a separate information block. It has not been the case ever before,” Margarita Lyange, Advisor to the Director of Public Relations of GRK "Radio Russia", states. “This topic was discussed in high offices, but it was almost a taboo for an open public discussion. And now there has come a moment when this is not the case any longer, not least because it is stated in the strategy that we should have a fairly open public discussion. Moreover, there will be in the framework of this strategy special training for journalists, so that they are able to competently work with this theme. Unfortunately, I must point out that we had the impression until recently that anybody can talk, write, shoot and communicate with the public about the subject of migration, the theme of inter-ethnic relations. In fact, many journalists lack any basic knowledge in order to at least properly interpret what he, let's say, hears from someone. A journalist should have a certain set of knowledge before he can begin to work on this subject. We strongly believe in this. Just as there is a required set of knowledge to cover economic, cultural, or sporting subjects. This is as much a part of our lives, but we are not fully accustomed to it yet.”
