Kyrgyz Migrant Revenues Come at a Cost
Money supports whole communities, but earning it can destroy families.
Kyrgyz Migrant Revenues Come at a Cost
Money supports whole communities, but earning it can destroy families.
Last year, the Batken region of low-income Kyrgyzstan received a cash injection to the tune of 96 million US dollars. The money was sent back by around 35,000 locals working abroad, most of them in Russia.
Labour migration on this scale is a feature of all parts of Kyrgyzstan, not just Batken, and indeed of neighbouring Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, too.
While the money transfers keep many a household afloat and boost the local economy generally, there is a cost. Most of the emigrants are men, and some stay on from season to season rather than returning home. When they start losing contact with their families in Kyrgyzstan, and perhaps set up new homes in Russia, the money stops coming, too.
Their wives are left in a difficult position socially as well as financially. Traditionally, they live with the husband’s family, and may find themselves less than welcome after a separation. It is also acutely embarrassing to have to tell friends and neighbours that their husbands have divorced them.
Sometimes marriages are preserved when both spouses go abroad, but that creates another problem – children left behind with relatives.
Jenish Aydarov is an IWPR contributor in Kyrgyzstan.
