UN Women has discussed labour migration and VAW with Russian journalists

Russian Union of journalists and UN Entity for Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women UN Women within the framework of the regional programme financed by the government of the United Kingdom have held a series of events dedicated to labour migration and prevention of violence against women at XV Festival of Russian Journalists held from September 25 to October 1 in Sochi.
Events dedicated to issues of labour migration were held on September 27, 28 and 29.
On September 27th a chairwoman of the Forum of Migration Organizations Lydia Grafova and a president of Migration XXI Century Foundation Vyachslav Postavnin have held a master class for journalists on the issues of coverage of labour migration.
Master class organizers have shared their opinion about Russia’s migration policy, which, in their opinion, needs to be reformed in order take into consideration current social and economic circumstances. According to Vyacheslav Postavnin, the old system of migration policy management in the form of strict control and bans is inefficient and leads to the increase of illegal migration. It is necessary, according to him, to create Ministry of Migration and National Policy in order to address the problem adequately.
Nevertheless, the speakers have stressed upon positive tendencies. For the first time the document of such high level as the Concept of Migration Policy in Russia speaks about the necessity of the presence of labour migrants in Russia. It gives a hope that migration policy in Russia might change. Journalists can actively participate in the process by approaching the issue of labour migration in a professional way.

According to Lydia Grafova, journalists should write their stories not only about ethnic diasporas and their work with migrants, but about criminal networks and contemporary slavery, which are widespread in Russia. Stories, according to Ms. Grafova, should vary in style and context. Article should involve audience in a discussion of a problem and speak about humanism.
The problem of labour migration has been also discussed at the round table “No law, no justice: violence against Women in Russia”. According to the associate professor of the social and political science department of the Institute of Professional and Advanced Training of the Moscow State University named after Lomonosov Irini Gorshkova, women labour migrants is one of the most vulnerable groups to gender violence. Cultural norms of the CIS region countries accept domestic violence as a normal practice. Women migrant workers are also subject to violence from the police, intermediaries, employers, partners and migrants from other countries. Besides domestic violence, they risk to become victims of forced prostitution and human trafficking.

According to a deputy director of the National Centre to Fight against Violence “Anna” and a member of the National Commission on Violence against Women, the phenomenon of violence against women in general is widespread in Russia. Mr. Sinelnikov said that every hour one of Russian women is killed by a husband or a partner. According to minimum calculations, each fourth woman is a victim of sexual violence. Thousands of women become victims of contemporary slave traders, are forced to get married and become victims of honour murders. However, considering high risks for life and health of women, measures undertaken for their protection are inadequate: there are only 22 shelters for women in the country with population of 142 mln.
The main reason of the lack of the adequate system of prevention and response to violence against women is the absence of special legislation in this sphere, which exists in more than one hundred countries. There were attempts to pass the law in 1995-1998. Situation with women labour migrants or women, who belong to the families of labour migrants, indicates that there are no practical means for their protection. Due to their irregular status and the absence of official residential registration they cannot get a place in a shelter and an access to medical assistance.
Representative of the Ministry of Healthcare and social development of the Russian Federation informed about the creation of a working group to elaborate a law on domestic violence. The first hearing about the results of working of the group shall take place at the end of October.

One of the major topic of an open discussion of experts with journalists “Labour migration without risks: the role and contribution of mass media” held on September 29 was the risk of labour migration for women and coverage of the issue of labour migration through the prism of gender equality. According to the experts, the traditional image of a migrant worker as a young man, who moved to another country to earn money and left his family at home, gradually transforms.

Experts argue that approximately 30 to 35 per cent of labour migrants from the CIS countries are women, who come independently or followed their husbands. There are young parents with little children, families with many children, single mothers and pregnant women among labour migrants. Such migration is a serious challenge to the social system of Russia, which is closed for the majority of migrant workers. Less than 10 per cent of women migrants and less than 30 per cent of their children have access to compulsory medical insurance and free medical assistance.
As a result of the events held, participants have elaborated the following recommendations. Participants have come to the conclusion that gender approach should be introduced into the key mechanisms of migration policy in both directions simultaneously – demands of women and men labour migrants related to the specifics and the nature of work and support of families of labour migrants who still live in their homelands.

As a result of the events, participants have produced detailed recommendations for government bodies and for improvement of understanding of the situation among journalists.
According to the participants of the events, during development and implementation of migration policy, including the legislative framework, it is necessary to pay attention to the importance of considering the gender factors in all key sectors and mechanisms of migration policy. Herewith, the gender approach should be introduced at the same time in two directions:
1. in terms of interests and the specific needs of women and men migrant workers related to job specifics and nature;
2. in terms of supporting the families of labour migrants, who have remained in the source country, envisaging a mechanism of development and implementation of loan programmes for families of migrants, training of migrants’ wives on income generating activities, training of migrants’ family members on the use of remittances for development of their households, business activities, and so forth. At that, it is necessary to take into account the non-homogeneity and different types of families of migrants depending on the success of labour migrant and communications with their families.
Considering factors mentioned above, participants of the events made the following suggestions in order to improve the positions of labour migrants in Russia:
• to include into laws on external labour migration standards on the rights of migrant workers to employment, free choice of activity and profession, combination of labour and family commitments, respect towards the human dignity and rights in case of early return to the source country, state social insurance and pension insurance, transfer of remittances, import of personal property and so forth;
• to include into the legislation on access to basic healthcare, education, social aid and insurance services, the right of migrants and their family members to use a list of free services[1], or to ensure mechanism of reimbursement of spent resources; payment of salary to individual accumulative pension accounts by employers and so forth.
• authorized human rights organizations and migration agencies should monitor the school attendance of the children of migrant workers, and ensure effective mechanisms for the protection of their rights in case of revealing violations related to their access to education;
• to establish mechanisms to assess the demand in labour resources aggregated by gender and sectors of the economy. To acknowledge the types of activities traditionally acknowledged as home work (nurses, baby sitters, sick-nurses and so on);
• to reform the systems of quota, job permit and information systems;
• to develop integration programmes for a certain category of workers such as women, disabled people, women with children, and so on.
• to develop municipal level educational programmes regarding tolerance of the population towards migrants;
• to run retraining courses for women migrants, who are not working in their specialty during a certain period of time (maternal leave, family member care leave and so on)