Tajiks Draft New Strategy for Labour Migration

While labour migrants bring Tajikistan many benefits in the shape of the money they send home, the authorities recognise the urgency of addressing the problems they often run into abroad, such as not having the right documents or being cheated by employers.

A national strategy paper has been drafted to provide framework for addressing these issues.

“We’ve tried to cover all the problems that labour migrants face – there aren’t too many, but they’re very complex,” Jamshed Quddusov, who led the working group that produced the document, told IWPR. “There’s welfare and medical provision for the migrants, protecting their rights abroad, and looking after the interests of Tajik families.”

In parallel, a law has been drafted which would regulate the position of labour migrants.

Estimates of the number of Tajikistan nationals working abroad – mainly in Russia – vary between 600,000 and one million, partly because many go unrecorded and partly because of seasonal fluctuations

The audio programme, in Russian and Tajik, went out on national radio stations in Tajikistan, as part of IWPR project work funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.