Kazakstan: Jobless Migrants Spark Crime Fears

The Kazak government has voiced concern that the recent economic downturn could encourage the large community of migrant workers to resort to crime - though there is little evidence of them doing so.



Sounding the alarm in late January, Prime Minister Karim Masimov urged police to keep a vigilant eye on migrants who had lost their jobs in the recession in the construction industry.



Masimov said the reduction in building projects might encourage certain unnamed criminal elements “to use the situation in their own interests”.



He told the police to carefully monitor illegal migrants’ movements and do their utmost to prevent disorder “related to their dismissal from employment”.



According to different estimates, at least 500,000 migrant workers from neighbouring states reside in Kazakstan, a country with a total population of about 15 million.



Most of the incomers are nationals of Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, drawn by the boom in construction linked to Kazakstan’s burgeoning oil wealth.



However, many lost their jobs after a crisis hit the building industry late last year.



The majority of the country’s construction companies have been carrying out projects funded by loans from Kazak banks that have been badly affected by financial turbulence on world markets.



Dependent on borrowing from foreign lenders, Kazak banks found themselves over-exposed when the sub-prime mortgage crisis hit America last summer. As international banks have tightened credit supplies, the amount of money available to Kazak lending institutions fell away.



The Kazak banks have reacted by raising interest rates and cutting the amount of credit on offer to clients.



This has had an immediate impact on construction projects in Almaty, Astana and other large cities. Some projects have been scaled down while others have been suspended entirely until the outlook improves.



Human rights activist Rozlana Taukina says the downturn has left thousands of “guest workers” in a grim situation.



“The crisis has stripped people of their earnings,” she said. “When construction sector is idle, people receive no money and really have nothing to live on.



“They can’t just leave and go home because if they do so, their employers will not pay them for the work they have done already.”



Akbar, a construction worker from Uzbekistan, has been living in Almaty for a year-and-a-half.



He and three fellow migrants rent a small house in a private residential area for 30,000 tenge a month (about 250 US dollars).



“In late autumn 2007, our building project closed down,” he said. “I got no pay for my last two-and-a-half months, so I estimate they owe me about 180,000 tenge.



“All my friends are in the same boat. We can’t go home because we will be struck off the payroll for ever, so we stay and wait for payment, taking random, low-paid, jobs in the meantime.”



Akbar does not criticise the Kazak government for voicing concern about the potential criminal activity of jobless migrants.



“Sometimes I meet my former fellow workers and while some are trying to find any job they can, others just steal,” said Akbar.



Kasymzhan Akhmetov, a master builder for one construction firm in Almaty, is another worried victim of the gloomy economic situation.



He said more than 1,500 workers had recently been laid off in his firm. “No one seems to care about how any them will find a living,” he said.



While the Kazak authorities appear nervous about the intentions of the country’s jobless migrants, there is little evidence that many have become criminals.



Konstantin Dostovalov, a senior inspector at the Directorate of Migration Police in Almaty, told IWPR the crime rate in the city had not changed.



“The crisis in the construction sector has had no impact on the criminal situation in any way,” he said.



“There has been no growth in the number of crimes committed by labour migrants.”



Other police officials said the prime minister’s instructions to the police to monitor migrants were meaningless, as neither officers nor anyone else held precise information on these people’s movements.



“Firstly, a number of these labour migrants came to Kazakstan illegally and are not registered,” he pointed out.



“Secondly, how can you trace the whereabouts of hundreds of thousands of people who have just lost their jobs?”



This official said the government would do better to try to find new jobs for the sacked construction workers rather than making the police responsible for their good conduct.



In 2006, the Kazak government launched a drive to force illegal migrants to register with the authorities. But less than half of the 300,000 or so illegal workers in the country at that time complied. Since, the number of both legal and illegal migrants has grown.



Taukina said she suspected some construction workers who lost their jobs had turned to petty crime to survive.



But even if this trend worsened, she doubted the police would offer an effective way of tackling the phenomenon.



“The police look for criminals only among the guest workers because they see them as the least protected part of the population,” she said.



“They can impose bribes and extort money from them.”



Daur Dosybiev is an IWPR contributor in Almaty.