IOM meets over outflow of itinerant workers

A national conference to discuss the dramatic outflow of itinerant workers who leave Tajikistan in search of better employment opportunities was hosted by the International Organisation of Migration (IOM) in Dushanbe on Friday. According to IOM, in the absence of an official government policy on migration, the exodus of over 200,000 long-term or seasonal migrants threatened to destabilise the economy. Igor Bosc told IRIN on Thursday that the meeting was significant as the first step in a process that would eventually lead to a government policy on the phenomenon of out-migration. “Although there are no accurate figures, we know that there is a huge flow of people leaving the country. It seems that every single family has a relative or acquaintance working abroad, usually in Russia,” he said. The Tajik Ministry of Labour unofficially estimates that over 200,000 Tajiks are working abroad on a seasonal or permanent basis. The Russian Federation, traditionally the preferred destination, has registered 160,000 Tajik workers this year alone. Special trains are laid on to facilitate the movement of people to and from the two countries. Apart from this, little is known about the labour migration or its effects on the Tajik economy. Bosc said that the government recognised the migration problem needed to be better understood. The national conference was an opportunity to bring together Tajiks from all sectors of government and civil society in an attempt to stimulate dialogue on the issue. Although IOM had prompted the national dialogue on labour migration, it wished to remain a catalyst to the process and considered that any solution had to originate from and “be owned by the Tajik government”. Bosc expected that the gathering of Tajik experts and officials would ultimately translate into government policy. “We hope that the outcome of the conference will be a general conclusion on how to proceed, rather than a specific programme of action. But what is significant is that the government is now committed,” he said. A follow up regional meeting on labour migration between international experts and Central Asian State delegates was planned for March 2001.