Seminar “Regional migration policy and migration processes in
Ryazan Oblast”

April 24, 2008, the Ryazan Regional Tolerance Center, Ryazan Regional Police Department, and the Ryazan branch of Moscow MVD University jointly conducted an inter-agency seminar entitled “Regional migration policy and migration processes in Ryazan Oblast”.

Participants of the seminar included members of the Committee on Social and Demographic Policy of the Ryazan Regional Duma (Legislative Assembly), senior officials of Office of Labor and Employment and Office of Public Health of Ryazan Oblast, officers of the Regional Police Department, railroad police officers, members of ethnic diasporas, local administrators, professors of the MVD University, and journalists.

Due to the increasing deficit of local labor resources, Ryazan cannot succeed without attracting foreign workers. However, unregulated legal status of foreign workers often leads to violations of law and order. In this respect, it is not enough to mention only systematic violations of visa regulations and registration procedures of foreign workers. There is also another, more urgent problem – deteriorating criminogenic situation, which particularly affects migrant workers from Central Asia.   

Currently, authorities are using only administrative measures to mitigate this process. Criminal measures are not used at all, or applied selectively. There are also frequent violations of the rights of foreign workers, both legal and undocumented, when they cross administrative borders within Russia. In order to eliminate violation of foreign workers’ rights, bring order to the process of issuing work permits, and provide decent accommodation to migrants, it is necessary to introduce effective mechanisms for regulating the process of labor migration.

Participants of the seminar have noted that although Ryazan’s Regional Police Department has been persistently cooperating with the Federal Migration Service, governmental agencies, and employment, health, and social services to protect foreign workers’ rights and help them adapt to local conditions, there is still no structure or program that could effectively connect all interacting parties. Russian federal migration laws do not help in this case either, because these laws are not supported by regional statutes that could regulate migration.

At the conclusion of the seminar, participants offered concrete proposals to optimize interaction of all involved agencies in future.

 

 

 

 

 

Show your support to the Climate of Trust Council... Donate!