Increased Flow of Labour Migrants Expected

Greater numbers of people are likely to leave Turkmenistan in search of work now that Turkey has relaxed its visa requirements. NBCentralAsia observers say that Turkmenistan may suffer a drain on its labour resources, while those who leave will be vulnerable to human trafficking.



On July 30, the Turkmen Human Rights Initiative reported that the number of people in Turkmenistan wanting to work abroad is growing.



At present, most migrants head for Russia or Turkey. Some go in hope of finding a job by themselves, while others are hired via Tuurkish job agencies.



On July 30, the Turkish foreign ministry abolished the visa requirements for stays less than 30 days stay for citizens of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan.



Turkmen who want to go to Russia can enter the country on a three- or six-month tourist visas. A dual citizenship agreement dating from 1993 should also allow people with two passports to move freely between the two countries, but Turkmenistan unilaterally announced an end to this arrangement shortly after a failed assassination attempt against President Saparmurat Niazov in November 2002.



The Turkmen government does not publish migration statistics or have a government body that deals with the issue, and exit procedures are handled by the frontier service and by the national security and interior ministries.



A migration law from 2005 requires anyone wanting to work abroad to get an invitation from an employer and provide their exact address. It does not spell out the procedure for seeking work when already abroad. or how companies can recruit from Turkmenistan.



NBCentralAsia observers say that the state does not have any of the checks and legal safeguards needed to protect its citizens abroad, leaving migrant workers as possible prey to human traffickers.



Tajigul Begmedova, leader of the Turkmen Helsinki Fund, an émigré group based in Bulgaria, says the government is ill-prepared to deal with a larger exodus of people, since the only mechanisms in place at the moment are administrative.



The authorities need to acknowledge the problem and set up a database on citizens abroad, establish contacts in the countries where they work and sign inter-government agreements that spell out their rights, she said.



“It is very important to prevent shady middlemen from taking advantage of the situation and creating a new channel [for human trafficking]. No one in Turkmenistan is dealing with this issue right now,” she said.



Other commentators are concerned that Turkmenistan will lose its workforce, saying that the state should set up employment programmes in densely populated regions where the exodus will hit hardest.



“If all that happens is the development of a [favourable] climate for labour migration, then there will be no one left working in the country in a few years,” said an NBCentralAsia analyst from western Balkan region.



An NBCentralAsia observer in Ashgabat says that labour migration from Turkmenistan began in the Nineties when almost all the young Russian-speakers left. The next to leave will be those who cannot afford to stay as long as unemployment keeps on going up and up, he predicts.



Estimates of the unemployment level vary between 25 and 70 per cent, depending on the source of information.



(News Briefing Central Asia draws comment and analysis from a broad range of political observers across the region.)