KHOROG, October 23, 2010, Asia-Plus  -- The Information and Resource Center at the Office of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Moscow has launched a hotline on problems of the labor migration in the Russian Federation.

The Center director, Ms. Yuliana Pavlovskaya noted that the IOM Moscow Office in cooperation with UNIFEM and the World Bank was implementing the regional labor migration program (Central Asia and Russia) under financial support of the UK Department for International Development (DFID).

The program is working in Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia.  In Russia, the program is working in Moscow region, St. Petersburg, Leningrad region and Yekaterinburg until 2012.

The main objective of the program is in protecting rights and improving socio-economic situation of labor migrants and their families.  In the Russian Federation, one of the main goals of the program is to promote regulation of the labor migration issues.

The Information and Resource Center was founded in September 2010 as part of this program.  Organizational structure of the Information-Resource Center is designed to provide free individualized information support and legal counseling to the visitors on the hotline, during the personal visits to center, outreach consultations and trainings provided by the lawyers and counselors of the Center on a wide range of issues in the sphere of labor migration.  Consultations are provided for all people, irrespective of their citizenship, gender, age, level of education, nationality, religion.

The primary target groups are migrant workers, coming to the Russian Federation from visa-free countries. In addition, the Center provides information support to employers, who are interested in use of foreign workers; to socially vulnerable groups of population (including irregular labor migrants on the Russian territory); governmental bodies and non-governmental organizations, working with migrants in Russia and member nations of the Eurasian Economic Community (EAEC); as well as to the expert community.

The hotline works at the St. Petersburg Red Cross International Cooperation Center in St. Petersburg as well.  In Yekaterinburg, the program partner is the public association, Uralsky Dom, which makes available legal services and consultations to labor migrants, Ms. Pavlovskaya said.