KHOROG, April 18, 2009, Asia-Plus  -- Issues related to working out a strategy of raising legal awareness of labor migrants and supporting former and potential labor migrants were a major topic of a roundtable meeting that was held in Khorog, the capital of the Gorno Badakhshan Autonomous Region (Gorno Badakhshan or GBAO) on April 17.

The meeting was staged by the Khorog Civil Society Support Center, Kalam, in cooperation with the GBAO agency for employment, migration and social protection of the population and the state unitary enterprise, Badakhshonkhorijakor (GBAO state enterprise dealing external labor migration), under financial support of the International Organization for Migration’s (IOM) Mission to Tajikistan.

During the meeting, it was noted that the necessity of working out the strategy was connected with the fact that despite ongoing financial crisis in the Russian Federation, labor migrants from Gorno Badakhshan wee continuing to travel to Russia seeking better employment opportunities.

According to experts, the number of labor migrants will be increasing because people do not want to get low-paid jobs in the region.

Representatives from the employment agencies of Rushan and Roshtqala districts noted that many of labor migrants that had returned over the first quarter of this year did not want to stay home and intended to travel to Russia again.

Speaking in an interview with Asia-Plus, the coordinator of the IOM Information and Resource Center for labor Migrants in Khorog, Bouribek Bouribekov, noted that the labor migrant support strategy was aimed at consolidating efforts of all interested organizations of the region to seek solution to the problem facing former and potential labor migrants in Gorno Badakhshan.

The meeting participants pointed to the necessity of intensifying work on raising awareness level of labor migrants, organizing the Russian language training to labor migrants and lobbing creation of special organizations dealing with labor migration issues.

The meeting also touched upon issues related to providing preferential loans to labor migrants and placing them in jobs in the region.