LABOR MIGRANTS – POTENTIAL “ILLEGALS”

Panorama.am
16:24 04/04/06

More than half of Armenian labor migrants leave the country for
the absence of work, 43% are not satisfied with the salary. The
above data were introduces by the head of the administration of
migration of the Ministry of Regional Government Gagik Yeghanyan at
the conference today.

As he said, the labor migrants become potential “illegals” in foreign
countries as they come across serious procedures.

“Particularly it refers to Russian Federation the main flow of migrants
leave for,” G. Yeghanyan mentioned.

And the main reason of illegal migration is the unawareness of our
citizens of the conditions of entry and stay in a country. “According
to the results of the examination carried out by International
Migration Organization (IMO) in 2002 53% of our citizens were unaware
of the existence of license for labor activity, 48% were absolutely
unaware of the necessity of entry visa,” he mentioned.

In the meantime, not all migrants are easily adapted in the
homeland. The obstacle is the unawareness of the new constitution
in our country, the absence of former social relations, discrepancy
of school program and many other factors. The head of Migration
Administration also introduced the Government’s plans to solve the
problem. In particular, it has been decided to form a structure which
will have a foreign (diplomatic commissions in various countries)
and inner (representatives of state structures) networks.

Among other efficient suggestions are consultations for migrants by
means of the Internet.

In the interview with Panorama.am correspondent the representative
of the OSCE mission Ovsanna Babayn mentioned that their aim is not
returning all the migrants to the homeland: “We only want to work out
a policy promoting return and integration of our citizens. The process
of return is only beginning and we have to pass the experimental stage
ourselves to understand what factors influence on the decision of a
migrant to stay in the country, as well as to understand what kind
of policy to lead.”

To note, the conference was organized with the assistance of Dutch
council of refugees and the OSCE.