ALMATY -- Central Asian immigrants stranded in Russia without work and with dwindling resources because of the coronavirus outbreak are seeing their woes compounded by unlawful police persecution and widespread fraud.
Thousands of migrant workers have been unable to return home from Russia after authorities closed borders and cancelled flights to Central Asia because of the accelerating spread of COVID-19 in the country.
Russian airlines have not issued refunds for tickets of cancelled flights, sapping the cash reserves of migrants.
With work drying up because of closed businesses, many migrants also have been left without housing and income. Early on in the pandemic, many migrants slept in airports until airport staff forced them outside.
In addition, migrant workers say that police and employers have fleeced them.
Tajik migrant workers in Russia are complaining that police officers and employers are demanding payment for work permits, Radio Ozodi, the Tajik service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), reported April 28. This document authorises migrants to work and pay taxes.
On April 18, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree stating that through June 15, migrants would be exempt from paying for or having to extend their permits and could work without authorisation documents.
A day earlier, Tajik migrants from Yekaterinburg told RFE/RL that police were arresting migrant workers from Central Asia for not extending their registration or not paying for the permit.
Bribes for permits
Similar incidents have taken place in Chelyabinsk, Tver, St. Petersburg and Moscow. Some migrants say that they are having to pay for the permits under the threat of dismissal by their employers.
Corrupt police are another group who demand bribes from migrants seeking permit extensions.
Russian police who arrest migrant workers for refusing to pay them for those bribes are violating the law, say human rights activists.
The permits are a steady source of illegal income squeezed from migrant workers, said Valentina Chupik, director of Utro Mira (Sunrise of the World), a Moscow-based human rights NGO.
The proceeds go to corrupt migration authorities and companies affiliated with them.
"Migration registration in Russia exists only for bribes, and it is directed specifically at migrants," Chupik said.
Local criminals are aggravating the situation for Central Asian migrants by preying on their precarious circumstances.
On April 19, the Kyrgyz embassy in Moscow issued a warning to its citizens about a new wave of fraud in Russia that is targeting stranded foreigners, the majority of whom are migrant workers from Central Asia.
"There has been an emergence of swindlers, who in exchange for a certain amount of money, offer to place people on a list to return to one's homeland [Kyrgyzstan], and who offer fake registration and forged passports," the embassy said.
"In light of this, the embassy is urging citizens to refrain from spreading unreliable information, and to avoid succumbing to disinformation by agitators and representatives of phony charities that allegedly support labour migration, and to populist promises or pronouncements by some unscrupulous politicians regarding the return of Kyrgyz citizens from Russia," it said.
Vanishing wages
Meanwhile, thousands of migrants are resigned to being unable to leave Russia soon, forcing them to seek help from their own governments while finding ways to cling to vanishing housing and wages.
Ulan Omorov, who is from Tokmok, Kyrgyzstan, and is now in Moscow, considers himself fortunate.
He lives with a relative, unlike many of his fellow Kyrgyz citizens, who have ended up on the streets without any support.
"Here in Moscow, citizens who lose their income receive benefits. But benefits are not paid to migrants, whom local employers have not even officially processed," he said.
"During these difficult weeks of the pandemic, no one here is accommodating us -- neither the authorities nor employers. I don't even ... go to the store because the police will take me to the station for allegedly violating quarantine," Omorov added.
Central Asian migrants being held in detention centres in Russia for not having work permits face deplorable conditions, say observers.
"About 100 Tajik migrants in a special detention centre for migrants in the Koltsovo settlement near Yekaterinburg demanded humane treatment and to be sent back to Tajikistan," Temur Varki, a BBC correspondent living in Paris, wrote on Facebook April 27.
"The situation is like this or even worse for Tajik migrants in special detention centres in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Hundreds of defenseless and forsaken Tajik citizens have ended up in Russian special detention centres in abominable conditions, without any rights or hope," Varki wrote.
Returning home
Even after Russia's quarantine eventually ends and borders re-open, the prospects of Central Asian migrants being able to return home appear dim.
In April, Russia's largest airlines sharply increased ticket prices. Companies such as Aeroflot, S7 Airlines, Ural Airlines and Utair hiked fares on domestic tickets by 50% to 110%, reported Vedomosti, a business newspaper, citing their websites.
Plane tickets are now affordable "only for those who are not price-sensitive and who absolutely need to fly no matter what", Alexander Fridlyand, a professor at the State Research Institute of Civil Aviation in Moscow, told Vedomosti.
Since migrant workers do not fit into this category, they can expect to encounter even harsher challenges in Russia soon.
Gollywogs are masochists. Russians treat them like scum beating up, abusing, humiliating, torturing them... even slaves lived better in Ancient Rome. Yet wogs keep coming...
Reply33 Comment(s)
"Who cares about what your Putin said": Migrants in Russia have to pay for work permits. 13:58 26.05.2020 Nearly one month after the so-called "period of non-work days", on April 18 President Putin April 18 signed Decree No. 274 "About the temporary measures to regulate the legal status of foreign citizens and stateless persons" in Russia during the pandemic. The document, among other things, addressed how to resolve situations when the time period to legally stay in Russia for hundreds of migrant workers all over the country was coming to an end while federal Migration Service offices were closed. Despite the decree delivered by the Russian President, migrants in Russia keep paying for work permits; Novaya Gazeta newspaper investigated the situation. 06:25 April 20 Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs explains Putin's order. Temporary stay periods, as well as a temporary and permanent residency, were put on hold for all foreign citizens in Russia from March 15 to June 15. This also applies to the departure dates for individuals scheduled for deportation, administrative removal, or transfer [for trial] to a different country. The validity period for some other documents was also suspended, including visas, temporary residency permits, permanent residency cards, immigration arrival/departure cards, and work permits. Ostensibly, all these measures were to ease the situation for millions of migrant workers in Russia. More than 900,000 migrant workers from Uzbekistan, a
ReplyDon't touch Putin, and guest workers are none of your freaking business
Reply33 Comment(s)
It's our fault that we go to Russia. The whole world turned away from Russia, and for good reasons. There are better countries in the world where people can earn more and have better living conditions. If you want to exact revenge on Russia, don't go there!
ReplyThe dumbest comment is yours )))
Reply33 Comment(s)
Russia is scum, what else can I say
ReplyAnd you are the truest kind of bot, with Russophobia programmed into you
ReplySweet America will get to you soon - then your day will come.
Reply33 Comment(s)
Who is Kanat Altynbaev? There's no trustworthy Facebook account under this name. And your Radio Liberty is the same as well as your site admins.
Reply33 Comment(s)
Valentina Chupik; Deputy chief of Saint Petersburg Police Department #86 Simonenkov: a discussion of the latest arrest. When they put the squeeze on him with evidence, a Russian police officer's full xenophobic rottenness came out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1ZYrWwDdbU
ReplyThey're simply fascists.
ReplyWhy are you hurling insults?
ReplyThis is a fake. Ridiculous to read, let alone follow a fishy link. Are you a bot by chance?
Reply33 Comment(s)
The coronavirus disaster is going on there
Reply33 Comment(s)
Because the Americans are right, people in Russia are Nazis; they are stupid and dirty chauvinists.
ReplyThat's what a chauvinist said
ReplyAnd who said that?a US Nazi and chauvinist?
Reply33 Comment(s)
They treat guest workers worse than they treat dogs in Russia... they do the same to all the indigenous peoples of Russia. Central Asia has never come across such disgrace and humiliation...
ReplyI live in Kazakhstan. The attitudes toward guest workers, even from Uzbekistan, is different here. Write about facts; don't muddy the waters
ReplyI would rather go to Kazakhstan than Russia.
ReplyWith all due respect — you are welcome
Reply33 Comment(s)
*pissed off
Reply33 Comment(s)
This site has no future cuz you 're way too passed off with the Kremlin
ReplyThis website is purely fake indeed
Reply33 Comment(s)
Like they say, don't run around like headless chickens, gentlemen )))
Reply33 Comment(s)
But Russian thieves and officials themselves live off our hard working people
ReplyAre you still so naive as to believe everything is rosy in the States? Subscribe to the @rt and @sputniknews they hate so much, and you'll find out ))))
ReplyWhat does the USA have to do with this? I don't visit the USA.
Reply33 Comment(s)
Fascist occupying regime of Russia
ReplyI beg to differ! [It's] an American expansion to the East! Read carefully!
ReplyThe inhuman Bolshevik regime of a one-thousand-year-old Ruthenia!
ReplyReally? Says who? A liberast like you? ["liberast" is a derogatory portmanteau combining "liberal" and "pederast"]
Reply33 Comment(s)
I say, what disgusting anti-Russian propaganda. Cringeworthy read and completely fake! [It's] biased US propaganda!
Reply33 Comment(s)