IOM says new passport system problematic for migrants

Moscow's decision requiring Tajik nationals to have national passports to enter Russia next year could prove problematic for hundreds of thousands of labour migrants from the impoverished Central Asian state. Current regulations allow Tajiks to travel back and forth using only their national identification documents. "I think no less than 500,000 people will be impacted by the decision," Muzaffar Zarifov, director of the Information and Resource Centre for Labour Migrants of the International Organization for Labour Migration (IOM) told IRIN from the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, on Thursday. Following the collapse of the former Soviet Union in 1991, most countries of the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) require passports to enter. According to media reports, Tajik citizens will be required to have passports to travel to Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan as of 1 July, 2005. But only 10 percent of the estimated 600,000 Tajik labour migrants working in Russia have passports, according to the IOM, and their ability to travel back to their homeland to procure one remains problematic. Tajik embassies abroad are not authorised to issue passports, requiring citizens to return home instead. "There are two provincial and one central passport offices in Tajikistan, but they lack the technical capacity to cope with a large number of applicants at once," Zarifov said, referring to those located in the capital and the provincial cities of Khujand and Kurgan-Tyube. The number of such facilities, their staff and technical capabilities would all need to be greatly enhanced, he added. And with Uzbekistan restricting the sale of train tickets to Russia to those holding national passports starting 1 January, time is quickly running out. "Not all labour migrants will be able to return due to transport problems. The train running between Tajikistan and Russia can only carry between 500 and 1,000 people each time. Some of the migrants might simply not be able to get on it," he explained. Meanwhile, those Tajiks in Russian not having passports risked a real chance of harassment, abuse and deportation at the hands of the authorities, the IOM official warned. Labour migration remains a key component of the Tajik economy, with an estimated 50 percent of the country's population - or some 3 million people - dependent on the remittances sent back from their family members working abroad. It is estimated that the combined value of money and goods flowing into Tajikistan through its migrant workers in 2002 was between US $200 million and $230 million, a sum equating to the former Soviet republic's annual budget.