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Human rights ombudsmen discuss legal aid to labor migrants

From 600,000 to 1.2 million labor migrants from Tajikistan are employed in Russia, with their money transfers ensuring almost half of the republic’s GDP

DUSNANBE, October 30 (Itar-Tass) — Human rights ombudsmen from Central Asian countries and Russia discuss ways of enhancing effectiveness of legal aid to labor migrants at the two-day regional conference that opened here on Tuesday.

“Labor migrants from countries of the region employed outside their native countries often meet with violation of their rights, and it is our task [of ombudsmen] to adopt the common stand in coping with that problem and change the situation for the better,” said Zarif Alizoda, the Tajik ombudsman, opening the conference. He sees the task of human rights ombudsmen “in finding ways of assessing scope of migration, state regulation of migration and monitoring the state policy on migration.” He urged the colleagues to act this way.

Addressing the conference, representatives of ombudsmen’ institutions from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Russian regions pointed out that “common problems, such as low skills, are aggravated by labor migrants’ ignorance of law, which makes them vulnerable and leads to their discrimination, exploitation and slave labor.”

According to various estimates, from 600,000 to 1.2 million labor migrants from Tajikistan are employed in Russia, with their money transfers ensuring almost half of the republic’s GDP.

The conference is attended by ombudsmen from Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, as well as Moscow, St Petersburg, the Leningrad and Krasnoyarsk regions and other large industrial regions of the Russian Federation.