Shafig Pshihachev: religious leaders should help migrants to adapt

The general representative of the Coordinating Center of Muslims of the North Caucasus in Moscow, mufti Shafig Pshihachev, said today that effective adaptation of migrants to life in the metropolis is only possible with the help of religious leaders, who need to be invited from their home countries. He said that they would help them to adjust to a different cultural environment.


"He (the worker) is not required to assimilate, but he has to adjust to the cultural environment he is in," Pshihachev said today at a press conference organized by RIA Novosti.

The mufti said that he intends to discuss the issue at a meeting of the advisory board of Muslims of the CIS, which will be held in Baku from April 16-17.
This year the Russian Orthodox Church plans to launch a program on the systematic integration of migrants in several regions of Russia. Stavropol, Pyatigorsk, Khabarovsk, Krasnodar and Rostov-on-Don will be the first cities on which the program will be tested.

To date, according to the Federal Migration Service there are about 10.5 million migrant workers in Russia, most of whom come from Uzbekistan (2.5 million), Ukraine (1.3 million), Tajikistan (1.1 million), Azerbaijan (599 million), Kyrgyzstan (559 thousand) and Moldova (517 thousand).