KHOROG, July 9, 2008, Asia-Plus — A photo exhibition formally titled “Tajikistan: World of Labor Migration” opened in Khorog, Gorno Badakhshan on July 8.
Staged by the Mission of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Tajikistan in cooperation with the Khorog Civil Society Support Center Kalam, the exhibition runs through July 18.
Speaking in an interview with Asia-Plus, Ms. Gulchehra Ibrohimova of the IOM Mission in Tajikistan said that before that, the exhibition had been organized in Dushanbe and Sughd and Khatlon provinces.
According to her, the objective of the exhibition is to familiarize labor migrants and intending economic migrants with various aspects of labor migration.
Ms. Mehrinisso Pirmatova of the Information and Resource Center for Labor Migrants (IRCLM) said that some 50 photos depicting any aspect of labor migration had been put on display in the exhibition. The photos have been selected from 300 photos, according to her.
Ms Pirmatova noted that the IRCLM was established in Dushanbe in 2004. The center has played an important role in providing information and counseling to many individual migrants and the general public. The IRCLM provides labor migrants and potential labor migrants with legal information about travels, border crossing, customs check, housing, registration, work permit, employment agencies, travel and employment risks including human trafficking, information about access to medical service, medical insurance, taxation, remittance and about administrative punishment of violations of arrival orders. “In 2007-2008, similar centers were established in other regions of the country as well,” Pirmatova said.
The Kalam head Bouribek Bouribekov noted that the exhibition and the recently established in Khorog IRCLM help provide information and counseling to local residents who want to leave for Russia in search of seasonable work.
The head of the Badakhshon Khorijakor (enterprise organizing external labor migration), Qamchibek Nasillobekov, said that the results of a survey conducted in 2007 already show that some 16,000 residents of Gorno Badakhshan are currently in labor migration outside the country, while according to unofficial data, the number of labor migrants from Gorno Badakhshan reaches some 28,000 people.
