4 Non-state managers of migration. Their view on the state management. . 61
4.1.2 The NGOs‟ policy recommendations and suggestions for structural
In my conversation with Gavkhar Dzhuraeva she stated that that under “the present circumstances of extreme and criminal chaos in the intermediary sector,” it is necessary that the state takes firmer responsibility. “Instead of the migrants being welcomed by middlemen it would be better if the state, the FMS, took their fees and legalized the migrants when they entered the country. And every time the registration expires the migrant should be able to go to the FMC to prolong his registration” (Dzhuraeva: 29.04.11).
73 How, then, is the FMS at present viewed by the human rights activists? Svetlana Gannushkina distinguished between FMS centrally and the UFMS, the territorial offices. The CAC cooperates with the federal service, she says, but her evaluation of the territorial
divisions is negative. “Very often they have no skilled personnel. Very often there is corruption” (Gannushkina: 10.10.11). “At the moment”, as Dzhuraeva sees it,” the FMS centrally is financially and structurally underdeveloped, but it is a very promising new-born baby” (хорошый ребенок). She sees potential in the FMS, and she would like to see its authority increase at the expense of other state agencies; If the FMS got more funding and was separated from the MVD, if it so to speak acquired full powers within the state‟s migration management. Only under such institutional conditions, she believes, can today‟s situation and the overall state management of migration improve (Dzhuraeva: 29.04.11). The very essence of her idea is the thought that the other state agencies involved in migration management should cede their authority in the field of migration to the FMS in order to avoid inter-agency conflicts.
“…when FMS sits down with the Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Regional Development, they all want to tear off a piece from the pie. They have different interests. FMS has more adequate ideas than the Ministry of Regional Development. They [The Ministry] do not see the migrants. FMS sees the migrants. They are working with the migrants, legalizing them or punishing them - they see them and understand what they need, what the country needs. But the Ministry of Regional Development - what do they know…They have no idea. Every year they are reducing the quotas, and they are not interested in which consequences these acts have for people (Dzhuraeva: 29.04.11).
Gavkhar Dzhuraeva compares the Ministry of Health care and social development, which she refers to as the Ministry of Labour51, with the UN in the sense she says that it has many resources available while it is unclear how these resources are spent (Dzhuraeva: 29.04.11).
“The Labour Ministry - is all the time talking about the quotas, just like the Ministry for Regional Development. Why do they need quotas, [labour] deficit and crime? I do not understand “(Dzhuraeva: 29.04.11).
But if no quotas, then what? Should there be some limitation on the entrance of labour migrants into Russia, should there be any regulations? As Denisova already stated above, she does not believe that other systems will be any less corrupt than the existing one. When I nevertheless asked her if not -when taking into account the widespread anti-migrant
sentiments among the population, an implementation of a visa-regime with the Central Asian countries could be a way to regulate the migration flow, she found this most unlikely.
51 The Ministry of Health Care and Social Development is in a sense the Labour Ministry since it includes the
Labour Department.
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“How can one speak of a visa-regime within the framework of the customs union? One can speak of whatever one likes, but we have a different reality. We can speak a lot about the visa-regime, but it cannot be implemented anyway because of the situation at the borders. Imagine the queues at the Russian Consular sections in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. We would have to have a consul in every town in these countries; this is how big the demand to go to Russia is. In my opinion this is not realistic”
(Denisova: 12.10.11).
And still, if the Russian state did want to regulate these flows of people with a visa-regime, she doubts that it would be capable of enforcing such regulations. What Denisova suggests instead as a means of regulation is some kind of organized labour recruitment; “firms in the countries of origin and in the recipient country, which know who needs whom and where, etc” (Denisova: 12.10.11). She does not idealize this variant, however, and she is against having this as the only scheme. She opts for market liberalism where immigrants also have the possibility to search for work independently, and where employers may hire foreign work force if this is feasible as long as it does not harm local workers. The market should be
allowed to work on its own. “The state should provide understandable and transparent rules, and not regulate the labour market completely” (Denisova: 12.10.11). The present state management with reduction of quotas does not reflect the reality, she says. “People are coming, and they will continue to come, they will just be turned into illegals” (Denisova:
12.10.11).
Back at Migration and Law, Dzhuraeva explains that the Russian government all the time is looking to Europe, and that the human rights activists from abroad are telling the Russian government how bad they are doing, and that they therefore need to follow the example of other countries.
“This way they are pulling Russia into a liberalism that is somewhat more similar to anarchy. Real liberalism is when you have clear regulations. Many human rights activists in Russia believe that liberalism is when everything is allowed\possible. But not everything can be allowed! If everything is allowed that will be our end -the end of order “(Dzhuraeva: 29.04.11).
It is necessary for all countries, she says, to study their own economy and their policy, ” to find out what is beneficial both for the immigrants and for the local specialists who are suffering because the migrants are pushing the wage level down” (Dzhuraeva: 29.04.11).
Under the present situation she is opting for a differentiated approach to migration. “Because when the approach is not differentiated, we get what we have now “ (Dzhuraeva: 29.04.11).
And that is, if summing up the non-commercial migration managers view, a disorderly situation with large scale illegal migration, illicit migration managers, a huge shadow sector of the economy and unworthy conditions for labour migrants.
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