By Vestnik Kavkaza
Russia takes the second place after the U.S. in the number of migrants. According to a report of the United Nations Population Department on economic and social affairs, this year the number of migrants in the world reached 232 million people (3.2% of the world population). The most popular countries for migrants are the U.S. (45.8 million), Russia (11 million), Germany (9.8 million), Saudi Arabia (9.1 million), the UAE (7.8 million), the UK (7.8 million), France (7.4 million), Canada (7.3 million), Austria (6.5 million), and Spain (6.5 million).
Russia is actively fighting illegal migration. Recently a draft has been introduced to the State Duma, according to which access to Russian kindergartens and schools will be closed to the children of migrants who cannot prove that they pay taxes in Russia. The initiators of the bill suggest that it can help free up places in the educational institutions for children of the Russian citizens and at least partially solve the problem of queues in kindergartens. At the moment, the children of foreigners have the right to attend Russian kindergartens and schools provided that their parents have a temporary registration. However, they continue to attend educational institutions even when the registration period, which is currently set at three months, expires. Alexey Zhuravlev, a member of the State Duma Defense Committee, and an expert on social policy Vera Lekareva commented the current state of affairs in the field of migration and shared their opinions as to whether the offer can be a part of the solution to the problem.
“According to experts, we lack more than 40% of places in kindergartens,” Alexey Zhuravlev says. “The practice for today suggests that a migrant who comes here gets a registration for, say, 3 months, and then he can immediately arrange for his children to go to school and kindergarten, and accordingly, enjoy all those social benefits that the citizens of Russia enjoy in pre-school and school education. We do not limit these rights. We only say that now you will need to provide a certificate from the Federal Tax Service testifying that the person has been a tax resident in Russia for the whole duration of his stay in the territory of the Russian Federation, but not less than one year. If a person has such a certificate, then he enjoys the same rights as citizens of the Russian Federation. If there is no such certificate, we do not limit the rights for pre-school and school education, but one moves to the end of the queue. Thus, we do not violate the Constitution of the Russian Federation, which provides the same guarantees for education in kindergartens and schools both for citizens and non-citizens of the Russian Federation.”
Vera Lekareva thinks this is a systemic problem and it can’t be solved with this one bill, but we cannot allow the indigenous population to live in worse conditions than the migrants. “Has anyone thought about our own people? How do they live? Especially in areas where illegal immigrants are quite rude and do not respect or abide by the laws. It is no coincidence that the president talks about the strengthening of criminal liability for violation of migration laws. We will lead out from the shadows tens of thousands of poor workers, not illegal I emphasize, that got enslaved by their employers. Migrant construction workers earn 20-25,000 rubles, whereas in fact this work is worth more than 50,000 rubles. Who benefits? Therefore, employers should build at their expense hostels with decent living conditions, with showers, etc., employers must ensure that workers can give their children the opportunity to go to school. In the year 2014 employers filed more than 6,000 applications for foreign workers. After the inspection we found out that 3,000 organizations that need a workforce are fake. That is, this is a slave trade. Let's get them into the daylight. And the most important thing, this benefits the interests of the migrants. We will help them to integrate into our society, they will not be in the position of a slave, they will get human living conditions. There is a need to create a register of employers who use foreign labor. I believe that we won’t have to wait for long for a federal law on the federal data bank of migrants. What a subject of the Russian Federation is in need of what numbers, and which activities are needed there. Why isn’t the native population involved? What has happened to specialists who are Russian citizens living in the area, why did they refuse a particular type of work? Then the picture will become clearer.
It should be noted that the mentioned measures touch on only foreign migrants, not the Russian citizens, including internal migrants from the North Caucasus. Pavel Astakhov, the Commissioner for Children's Rights under the President of Russia, told Vestnik Kavkaza: “The Caucasus, in particular the North Caucasus republics, is distinguished by the fact that they love children. There's a very strong tradition. Despite the challenges and trials that fell to the lot of the Caucasus peoples, in particular the Chechen people, Dagestan, Ingushetia, Karachai, Cherkess, in general no one was spared, but the tradition is so strong that family placement of children is not a topic which is necessary to promote in the Caucasus. You can simply say: you know your history, you know your culture, you know your traditions. That’s all. After that, everything is clear. Three years ago we had a very large comprehensive inspection of the North Caucasus; there was not even a federal district then. We visited all the childcare institutions of the North Caucasus, all the republics in all the regions of the Russian Federation and paid attention to the fact that even the number of orphans that was present was lower than average for Russia. In Ossetia then there were about 200 orphans, in Karachay- Cherkessia - also about 200, in the Chechen Republic there were 176 orphans in June 2010. But just two years later, when for the second time I went on an inspection trip, everything changed in fundamental ways. In the Chechen Republic there are no orphans in orphanages. Of course, they are identified throughout the year. In 2012, 35 children were identified. But they were placed in families by the end of the year.”
According to Astakhov, “in the Caucasus republics there are almost no abandonments. This is very important, because it is one of the worst social phenomena, dysfunctional phenomena - a rejection of the child when the mother in the hospital rejects the child, the father abandons his child. In Chechnya there was not a single abandonment. All other figures in the republics of the North Caucasus are minimal. But we must not forget that, after all, the republics of the North Caucasus are not strong only due to the people who traditionally live there. There is migration, people come to work or for some other life issues. Other nationalities live there, which perhaps do not have such traditions, or they have forgotten their roots. However, the figures still speak for themselves, because there is such a strong family tradition that children are not left alone in orphanages.”
