DUSHANBE, July 22, 2009, Asia-Plus  -- 54,000 Tajik women are currently working outside the country as labor migrants, the first deputy chairperson of the Committee for Family and Women’s Affairs, Ms. Qimmatgul Allaberdiyeva, said, referring on an official data provided by the ministries of Interior and labor.

“According to this data, women constitute 15 percent of Tajik labor migrants working abroad,” Allaberdiyeva said.

On the overall number of Tajik labor migrants working in other CIS states, she said, “I assume that the real number of Tajik labor migrants working outside the country is much higher than the official data shows.”

Ms. Allaberdiyeva said that during its recent visit to the Russian Federation, the Tajik delegation, comprising representatives from the Committee, Migration Service within the Ministry of Interior and Tajik Embassy in Moscow, had held meetings with Tajik women working there.  “During those meetings, it was proposed to set up the Association of Female Labor Migrants under the Committee for Family and Women’s Affairs,” said the deputy chairperson, “However, for establishment of such an association women should constitute 20 percent of the overall number of labor migrants, while Tajik women now constitute 15 percent of labor migrants working abroad.”

She added that the Committee plans jointly with the Committee for Youth, Sports and Tourism Affairs, State Committee for Statistics and the Interior Ministry Migration Service to set up a working group and conduct monitoring in order to find out the exact number of Tajik women working outside the country.

Allaberdiyeva noted that they also plan to find out the exact number of Tajik women serving their services in penal colonies in the Russian Federation.