Russia holds conference on medical, social and gender aspects of migration

A conference titled “Labour Migration in Russia: medical, social and gender aspects of integration” was held at the Public Chamber of Russian Federation in Moscow on October 26-27 2011. The conference was held under the aegis of commission on interethnic relations and freedom of conscience of the Public Chamber of Russian Federation with the support from the Red Cross and Red Crescent within the framework of global partnership with the Department for International Development of the Government of the United Kingdom (DFID) and United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women UN Women. Organizers: Russian Red Cross and Red Crescent, Center for Migration Research and Public Foundation “Tajikistan”.

“In order to solve the problem of migration, it is necessary to create a serious legal ground for its solution to make those who host migrants and those who are coming to the country responsible”, - member of the Public Chamber Alla Gerber said.
According to the director of department for international cooperation of the public charity organization Russian Red Cross (RRC) Sergei Kobets who referred to the data of the Federal Migration Service, today approximately 9 mln foreign citizens, the majority of whom are labour migrants from the CIS countries, live and work on the territory of Russia.

According to him, labour migrants today “are not in the best position, they are deprived of medical services, social support from the state and can count only upon paid medical services, which decreases degree of their safety in the country”. Experts from Federal Migration Service of Russian Federation, All-Russian public organization “Russian Red Cross”, Centre for Migration Research, UNESCO and representatives of the embassies of Moldova, Belarus, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan stated that today flows of migrants are poorly registered and regulated.
What is there, in the shadow? Who are those people who came to Russia, what are they doing, where do they leave, what do they do, what do they eat, where do they get medical assistance? Which schools do their children attend if they had brought them to Russia or had given birth to them here? Most of the experts cannot answer these questions to dead certainty due to the fact that migrants who arrive to Russia to earn money do not know Russian language and cannot speak out for themselves. They cannot register or fill in corresponding documents on their own. They cannot ask for medical assistance if necessary because they are scared that if they get sick, they will not be cured but deported. When they get sick, they do not get medical assistance; giving birth they leave children at maternity hospitals; even if they do, they do not send them to schools and multiply people who cannot adapt to life in Russia.

Representative of Federal Migration Service Alla Bronnova stated that 36% migrants from Central Asia do not speak Russian despite the fact that “knowledge of language is a condition for comfortable and safe stay in the country”.
According to Alla Bronnova, “today there are millions of foreign citizens who do not know language at all and work with local population. Obviously, it results in tension between people who physically cannot negotiate and understand each other because they speak in different languages”. It seems that this problem is easy to solve because there are free Russian language study centres for migrants. But those who come here to work do not want to study because it is possible to find a job without knowledge of the language. “Employer is more interested in profit than in literacy of the employee”, - Alla Bronnova underlined.
Head of the laboratories of national economic forecasting of Russian Academy of Science Zhanna Zayonchkovskaya said that “decrease in employable population sharply raises a question about necessity to attract migrants who have higher education in one or another area”. She also stated that “a problem of increase of illegal migrants is an acute problem in the country”. “More than 30% of labour migration market is in shadow”, - she said. Zayonchkovskaya also mentioned that “labour migrants, especially, in the CIS countries amount to 10% of Russian labour market, but by 2020 this number may increase up to 20%”.
Yelena Tyuryukanova, director of Centre for Migration Research, and Yuliya Florinskaya, senior staff scientist of the Institute of Demography of the State University – High School of Economics based their speech on two studies conducted with the support from UN Women: “Opportunities and problems of social integration of labour migrants from Central Asia in Russia” (on the example of Moscow and Saint Petersburg) and “Women migrants from the CIS countries”. They underlined that the stereotypical image of a healthy young man migrant, who does not need social services offered by the host state, is a thing of past. Today labour migrants may be represented by a family having many children, a single mother with a little child or a pregnant woman. Today doctors more often come across with migrant women in childbirth who have no medical documents about their health condition and course of pregnancy. It is obvious that this category of migrants is a new challenge for the social system of Russia, which should react to changes in the society related to migration.

Models of women’s labour migration are varied. They participate in migration either as self-reliant (independent) migrants or come as family members of a principal migrant, for example, a husband. Some women arrive to earn money with children; others leave their children with relatives to be taken care of. Some are aimed at earning money and supporting their families; others want to gain independence and find their destiny in the new country.
Till now some specific issues of women’s migration in Russia, a country with large-scale migration flows, were left without due attention, and on which little research is done. The fact that few women are represented in the official migration statistic gives grounds to consider labour migration in general as a “male process” that does not correspond to the reality. Share of women migrants in Russia is quite significant. Goals and needs of women migrants are quite specific similarly to risks and opportunities, which are provided to them by migration.
At the event participants have presented various gender characteristics of women migrants, including models of women’s labour migration. Yelena Tyuryukanova has paid particular attention to the access of women migrants and children to medical assistance.
Less than 10% of women and about 30% of children have access to free medical assistance in Russia. About 40% of migrants use paid medical services to receive treatment and to cure their children.
Now all migrants have access only to emergency medical services. However, this will also come to an end soon. According to the new legislation on compulsory medical insurance, starting from 2013 ambulance shall be financed at the expense of compulsory medical insurance funds, that is, all foreign citizens, who have no insurance policy, will not be able to get an emergency medical assistance.

It is necessary to mention two major problems related to reproductive behavior of women and access to services of gynecologist. The first is a plenitude of abortions among women due to inability or unwillingness to use contraceptives. Multiple cases of prohibition of contraceptives from husband/partner or religion among Muslims, victims of which are always women, play a special role. About 40% of migrants from Tajikistan do not use contraceptives due to their religious beliefs and because their partner does not mind. Disuse of contraceptives leads not only to the increase of number of abortions but increases the risk of infection of sexually transmitted diseases. The second problem is undesirable childbirth that leads to child abandoning. According to the survey, each tenth woman migrant was pregnant during her stay in Russia. The third of these pregnancies ended up in childbirth and more than 40% ended up in abortions. All participants of the conference have paid attention to novelty, high professionalism and seriousness of suggestions presented by Ms Zaichkovskaya, Ms Tyuryukanova and Ms Florinskaya.
Participants of the conference have been actively discussing medical, social and gender aspects of labour migration in Russia. Participants have also suggested ways of further improvement of cooperation between Russian and international public organizations, representatives of ethnic diasporas and state providers of medical and social services to vulnerable categories of labour migrants considering gender specifics. Special attention was paid to elaboration of particular mechanisms to improve access of labour migrants to medical and social assistance in Russian Federation and consolidation of efforts of civil society aimed at helping and protecting rights of migrants.