IOM concerned about new migrant agreement

The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in Tajikistan has said that an agreement soon to be signed by Tajik and Russian officials to improve the rights for Tajik migrants travelling to Russia would not make much difference. "This agreement is OK, but does not really solve the problems Tajik migrants face, as it is so vague and has very little [in the way of] implementation mechanisms," the head of the IOM mission in Tajikistan, Igor Bosc, told IRIN from the capital, Dushanbe, on Monday. "It will satisfy the politicians, and has been deliberately kept vague," he added. The agreement, of which no further details have been made available, has been under negotiation for several years, having been initiated by a Tajik former labour minister, with the aim of protecting migrants' rights. According to official statistics in Dushanbe, there are roughly 300,000 Tajik migrants in Russia today. However, this estimate has been put much higher by IOM - at a minimal figure of 500,000. Bosc added that his agency was hoping that the authorities would focus on more pressing issues for Tajik migrants. "IOM does not believe that this agreement is an important issue; there are much more important issues," he said, adding that there was too little information available to putative migrants. "Firstly, Tajiks need to know what their rights are and what realities and risks they will face in Russia," he said. The IOM believes Tajiks are ill-informed as to what they could face when entering Russia. "We are trying to prioritise awareness-raising of such issues," said Bosc. Dangers facing migrant workers include human trafficking, which is now an organised criminal activity worldwide. According to a US State Department report in 2002, the global magnitude of this crime is staggering. Annual estimates range from 700,000 to four million people bought, sold, transported and held in slave-like conditions for sex and labour exploitation worldwide. In an effort to highlight these problems, a two-day seminar was arranged by the IOM in Dushanbe last November. Another concern is the fact that Tajiks are being employed in unskilled jobs making them more vulnerable to exploitation, and this, Bosc said, highlighted the need for potential migrants to gain other skills before leaving the country. He went on to point out that the agreement was itself a difficult issue for the Russians to deal with as their country had to consider migrants from other Central Asian republics, the Caucasus and China, as well as other places. "Giving privileges to Tajikistan could undermine relations with other governments," he said.