DUSHANBE, June 3, 2009, Asia-Plus — Speaking in an interview with Asia-Plus, the national coordinator of the ILO Community Development through Employment Creation and Improved Migration Management in Tajikistan Project, Sobir Aminov, said that some 30 percent of more than 5,500 Tajik returning labor migrants had said that they had been forced to return home because they had been discharged from their jobs.
More than 70 percent of those surveyed has attributed their returning home to the global financial crisis, Sobirov said.
According to him, the poll was conducted by the Ministry of labor and Social Protection and the ILO provided assistances with analyzing and reviewing the survey.
Aminov also underlined the importance of vocational-technical education for labor migrants. “The vocational-technical education in Tajikistan should be reformed because it has lost major part of teaching staff as well as the whole infrastructure,” he said, noting that vocational education and training system is one of the key factors to reduce tension in labor market.
The Community Development through Employment Creation and Improved Migration Management in Tajikistan Project aims to improve the overall security situation in Tajikistan with particular emphasis on socioeconomic and personal security needs of people on the move and of women who were left behind without income. It is based on a two-pronged strategy: 1) empowering people and communities through income-generating activities, training and awareness raising; and 2) assuring the protection of Tajik migrant workers and their families through better migration management. The main beneficiaries of this project are potential migrant workers as well as disadvantaged women and young people from the Rasht valley.
