Tribuna’s guest is the deputy chairwoman of the Federation Council Committee on Constitutional Legislation and State Construction, senator of the Saratov Region, Lyudmila Bokova.
- Recently there was a big round table with the participation of representatives of relevant departments, where the problem of rejection of issuing disability status to children was considered. How is the issue being resolved?
- We must pay tribute to our citizens who are faced with this problem and who have asked us for support so we could deal with this situation. And when we began to work in more detail, it turned out that the Ministry of Labor has developed an order 664, which did not change the approach of the determination of the status of a disabled child, but quantitative and qualitative indicators were introduced. And just because of these indicators, many parents who had previously had disabled child, while undergoing a medical examination, faced with the fact that, according to quantitative indicators, they do not fall into the category of "disabled child". Accordingly, they are deprived of all possibilities to provide rehabilitation, for full medical care to the child and, respectively, a barrage of complaints collapsed.
We have tried to accumulate them, to find out the problem, to gather the expert community, the Ministry of Labor, we invited regional medical and social analysis. Somewhere the same case is assessed as a child with a disability, and somewhere he is not assessed as such.
To create uniformity in the implementation of this order, we made a number of proposals, which are currently being discussed at the Ministry of Labor. In November we promised each other to meet one more time and look for necessary changes, to make corrections to this order. So such a problem noticed in time is being solved quite quickly now. Those families who have a child with a disability could receive full medical care and support.
- Does this mean that this problem will be solved?
- Yes, 100%. This problem will be solved. We will try to avoid subjective interpretations and subjective decision-making, and we will try to achieve the help being more clear, reasonable, targeted.
- You are dealing with many issues, including migration policy, in the Federation Council. Recently, the Federation Council has established the responsibility for illegal employment of foreign nationals. Is it true that there were no such things earlier in Russian legislation? What has changed?
- Recently we have actually lined up the legal framework in the field of migration policy. All the activities that were adopted at the legislative level pursued the suppression of the illegal involvement of migrant workers, which creates a negative precedent in terms of violations of workers' rights. Above all, their rights to decent wages and a social package are violated. We are a civilized country, and we cannot afford such things. Therefore, the whole legal field was made just for the curbing of illegal immigrants and at the same time for the creation of favorable conditions for attracting immigrant workers. This is the introduction of the patent system for employers by motivated presentation of the head of a region of the Russian Federation, where he really shows how many migrant workers and in what areas they are needed today in the region. Starting from these positions alone, the number of patents which are necessary to implement in a given subject will be indicated.
Today we have the first analysis in this regard, and it is really good, that is, motivated, prepared, adapted for working citizens entering the country. Migrants from CIS countries pass exams on knowledge of the Russian language, the history and the legal framework of the Russian Federation easily enough. The situation with others is much more difficult. For them, we introduced a so-called regional component of the exam, which allows you to prepare consistently and successfully pass the exam in order to get the right to work here.
We have quite a large labor market and highly skilled professionals are in demand in segments of our economy. So this will allow us to have an idea about the possibilities of our market and regions in order to arrange our citizens in vacant positions at first, and then invite migrant workers to unclaimed positions.
- Ludmila Nikolayevna, you have been elected the deputy chairman of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (PABSEC). This organization doesn't appear in the media so often. Tell us about the organization and its role, how has it changed in relation to the events in Ukraine? Is it not a secret that Ukraine is also a Black Sea country?
- It is one of the oldest international organizations, it has recently celebrated its 20th anniversary as an international organization. There are 12 countries that are really connected with the Black Sea in some way, which united them all. There are several cultures, several languages, several religions, but, nevertheless, it is a platform which has merged on such positions as economic cooperation, cultural cooperation, cooperation in education, sport, tourism. We do not intend to solve some political problems, we solve only one major task – it is a comfortable accommodation and coexistence of completely different countries in the same region. We really can raise pretty serious questions about cooperation, there is a development of specific recommendations on topics which are considered at committees, and then these recommendations are sent to the heads of state, who already choose for themselves, so to say, a vector for their future work and implementation.
It allows us to present the situation in each country more fully, that is, we monitor the implementation of these tasks in a given country – this is the development of tourism and the development of sport, and tasks such as, for example, problems in education, and in support of national culture, in support of the development of legislation in this area. It allows us to actually get to know each other and at the same time to find common ground. We learn from each other, we are adopting some very positive experiences and trying to explain it to the authority of the country.
At the last session of the General Assembly we have supported the delegation which presented the new Ukrainian parliament, and we hope that they will work with us. But today, sadly, I, for example, don't see a constructive position on their part. I would like for them to pay more attention to the problems of accessibility of education, the availability of institutions of culture, socio-economic issues. Now we are seeing quite a difficult situation, when a part of the population of Ukraine has none of this. Relationships in this segment are complex, but nevertheless I think that we will reach an understanding.
-That means that the Parliamentary Assembly of Black Sea Economic Cooperation was no exception. Roughly speaking, the Ukrainian delegation builds their relationships in the same way as in the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly.
-Yes, although the organization does not set the task of resolving some political situations. We have a lot of conflict situations in the region, and if we will create even more of these conflicts, it would lead to the rupture of the international organization, and for us it is important to maintain cooperation. And that is why for us the vector of cooperation is the humanitarian spheres in which we really find understanding and solve main tasks through these areas – it's a comfortable life for the residents of this constituent part. We are trying to build a dialogue in this key. Well, and not going into the polemic of our, shall we say, bilateral relations.
To be continued
