Virtual Parallels
Migration in Armenia and Azerbaijan Today
Migration in Armenia and Azerbaijan Today
What are the reasons for migration in Armenia and Azerbaijan at present? What problems do Armenian and Azerbaijani migrants encounter in the countries of their residence? What concrete measures do the states do to reduce migration flows and do they need to take such actions? These are the questions addressed in the interview presented below.
They Think that the Ones Who Leave Have a Better Life
- What is the migration situation like in Armenia? Have the reasons for emigration from the country changed if we are to compare them with those in the past years?
- As it is well known, statistics is necessary to characterize the migration situation; however, Armenia does not have this kind of information either at state agency or international structure level. We can only use marginal data to state that in Armenia passenger traffic is annually increasing by 20 – 25%. However, we cannot characterize the migration situation in Armenia only by this fact. It is very difficult to maintain statistics on the migration of RA citizens into countries which do not require a visa. For example, into the CIS countries. The International Organization for Migration supports the Government of the RA to improve the database on migration flows. The Government has already ratified the concept of the RA Migration Regulation State Policy and the program for 2012 – 2016. After its implementation we will have improved systems of information and statistics.
According to the data of the Employment Service, unemployment is rated 30% in Armenia. This factor, combined with the lack of well-paid jobs, is, in my opinion, the main reason for the people’s desire to leave Armenia. Another reason consists in the fact that the specialties people are trained for in higher educational institutions do not comply with the labor market demand. In Armenia, for example, 100 lawyers are annually trained in universities, who however, later fail to find appropriate jobs.
Another circumstance that contributes to migration is the existence of a large Armenian Diaspora. Those who leave know that there is an Armenian community in the country they will arrive in or there are relatives and acquaintances who will help them to be integrated into the society and to find a job.
We should also take into consideration short-term labor migration. Back in the Soviet times the population in some villages would leave for seasonal works, mainly to Russia, since they could not support themselves by agricultural practices.
Hence, the reasons for migration are mainly of socio-economic character, however, people leave also aiming to get education, medical care or because of unfair treatment.
- How important to Armenia are the money transfers received from migrants?
- According to the data provided by the International Monetary Fund, bank remittances have constituted 16% of the GDP of Armenia in the last 5 years. 89% of the total volume has been received from Russia. 40% of imported goods are consumed due to these sums. This is a large volume which is twice larger that direct foreign investments. Armenia is among those 15 countries in the world the economies of which are largely based on this kind of bank transfers. The sums received from abroad are spent mostly to satisfy the basic needs of the population. Some of this money is put by as savings. This money is used as investments, for example, to start a small business.
- What problems do Armenian migrants encounter in the countries of their arrival and what is the difference between the problems faced by migrants in Russia and in the Western countries?
- The degree of difficulty as well as the types of problems in Russia or European countries are conditioned mainly by the status of the migrant. In Russia there are no problems with visas, but there are complications with registration and certainly the number one problem for labor migrants is the smaller than expected payment. In the cases of European Union the problems consist in the visas – they mostly provid3e tourist visas. They do not ensure employment permission. The fact that they do not know the language and are culturally alienated are significant problems. As a rule, the migrants do not tell of their negative experiences. I think this is a psychological complex – people are not willing to tell of their failures. And when we ask why they are back they say that they had family problems or that they missed their relatives. As a rule, they do not mention that they were paid very little or they did work they did not quite fancy or felt themselves alienated from the society.
Information on the negative experiences of migration does not get spread. There is only a general impression that those who have left lead a perfect life in another country. And this is another reason for migration.
- What is the migration policy led by state? How does the migration policy of Russia, European or other states impact on the migration situation in Armenia?
- The migration situation in Armenia would be better characterized when termed as immigration, and the regulation of immigration is channeled through activities of control, facilitation and management of immigration flows. The state in the first place bears responsibility for processes taking place inside the country and not beyond its borders, and only after this and within the framework of international agreements does the state of Armenia take care of its citizens abroad.
There are a lot of discussions on how to stop migration in Armenia. But it is impossible, moreover it is unnecessary. Today we are facing a demographic problem – the population is not reproducing itself. This is very dangerous, that is why it is in the first place necessary to pay attention to the issue of the reproduction of the population. And I think that it is wrong to solve the demographic problem only by the cessation of migration, besides, it is simply impossible.
As for the policy led by other countries, those definitely impact on the situation in Armenia. European countries, on the one hand, facilitate the procedure of providing a Schengen visa, on the other hand, within the framework of agreements signed with the Government of the RA as well as through the operations of local representations of international organizations they assist in organizing the return of RA citizens and their re-integration in the motherland. For this reason the returnees are given certain material aid, due to which they can start their own businesses in the motherland or to solve some other problems to support themselves.
Half a year ago the Compatriots program initiated by the government of Russia launched in Armenia. The essence of the program consists in ensuring opportunities for CIS citizens to leave for Russia in case they want it, receive citizenship and get settled mostly in under-populated regions. This is how Russia is trying to populate the country with people of identical cultural heritage, since Russia has a problem with populating some territories. I would not state that this policy is being led specifically to attract Armenians. About one million Armenians already live in Russia, and this factor attracts emigrants more than the state support program. In any case, judging from facts, this program is not having a significant influence on the migration situation in Armenia.
Specificities of Migration Processes in Azerbaijan
- What is the migration situation like in Azerbaijan? Have the reasons for emigration from the country changed if we are to compare them with those in the past years?
- The migration processes in post-Soviet Azerbaijan have taken place in a few stages each of which has had its own specifics and characteristic features with their varied influence on the socio-economic and political life of the society.
The first stage (1988 - 1994) began back in the times of the USSR and had to do with the Karabakh conflict as well as the collapse of the USSR. All these events brought about colossal migration flows from Azerbaijan and within the Republic and led to serious demographic changes in the country. In 1988 – 1994 no less than a total of 850 thousand people emigrated from Azerbaijan, and up to 500 thousand immigrated into the country. At that time the migration flow directions from Azerbaijan were mainly directed to Russia and Armenia, as well as other CIS countries. Beyond the former USSR the citizens of Azerbaijan preferred to go to Israel and the USA.
The second stage started after the 1994 armistice was signed between Armenia and Azerbaijan. In the second stage the ethnic and language commonality factor lost its topicality, and the economic factor began to play a more important role in the migration processes. When speaking about this stage of migration processes, we should mention the labor migration of the population of Azerbaijan that happened due to the most severe economic crisis. By the way, at this time the migration flows mainly involved the provincial population of Azerbaijan. As before the main flow of migrants from Azerbaijan headed for Russia, as well as other CIS countries. As a result of the migration processes that took place after the collapse of the Soviet Union approximately a total of 1.5 million Azerbaijanis currently live in Russia and other CIS countries. Since 1996 Azerbaijani migrants began to be interested in emigrating to the West. At that, most Azerbaijani citizens preferred to leave for Germany, as well as the Netherlands and the USA.
The third stage came after the 1998 August crisis in Russia which was a serious blow on the financial hopes of Azerbaijani migrants and finally reoriented them to the countries in the West and the Near East. All this notably decreased the migration flows from Azerbaijan to Russia.
At that, the migration flow to the West and East had to do not only with the desire to find a job. Quite a few citizens of Azerbaijan began to leave the country at the end of the 1990s due to political reasons, while the youth left to study and not everyone later returned to the Motherland. In 2012 over 120 thousand citizens left the country. Over 44 thousand former citizens of Azerbaijan submitted their documents to receive a refugee status and approximately 3 thousand people have received it at this point.
At this stage, but especially after the installment of the Baku – Tbilisi – Ceyhan oil pipeline in 1999 and after the activation of Western and other oil companies in the Caucasus the number of legal and illegal labor migrants has notably increased in Azerbaijan. Thus, Azerbaijan has at the same time become a leading labor provider in South Caucasus for other countries, and the gravity center for labor and transit migrants, mostly from the countries of the Near East and South Eastern Asia.
- How important to Azerbaijan are the money transfers sent by the migrants?
- The problem of money transfers sent by the migrants, or the so-called ‘migrodollars,’ have played a great role in the life of the Azerbaijani society. Especially in the provinces. In fact, the whole profit made from the sale of energy resources rests mainly in the capital in the pockets of the ruling elite and their surroundings. And in the provinces the population lives mostly by the remittances made by the migrants, who are especially concentrated in Russia. According to the World Bank data, the remittance money sent to Azerbaijani citizens has been growing from 54 million dollars in 1999 to about 1,7 billion dollars in 2011. However, the migrants transferred large sums of money mostly through their relatives and friends in the 1990s. As a result, the real amount of migradollars at that time was not incorporated in statistics. However, even the part that becomes known through official dat, is also very illustrative.
- What problems do Azerbaijani migrants encounter in the countries of their arrival and what is the difference between the problems faced by the migrants in Russia and in the Western countries?
- The problem of migrants’ integration has always been a most acute and most conflicting issue. On the one hand, the situation in the country the migrants stay in plays a significant role. Migrants do not have serious problems in countries with the rule of the law and a stable socio-political situation. The migrant ought to take into consideration the rules and the requirements enforced (knowledge of the language and the laws of the country). But if in this or that country there is no rule of the law, the socio-political situation is complex, the migrants have to face many additional problems which have to do with ‘migrantophobia,’ with flashes of violence practiced by local nationalists and executive power bodies. All this can be well seen in Russia, where the social and political situation is very complex, and ‘migrantophobia’ has become a business card for that country. The acute rise of nationalism and chauvinism, the activities of the skinheads, but even more so the illegal actions of power agencies, especially those of law-enforcing bodies, towards the citizens of the former USSR who have arrived in this country, very much complicate the migrants’ lives. In contrast to this, the situation is different in the Western countries. And most importantly, the migrants do not have problems with the law and the local power in those countries. That is to say, in this regard those who comply with the laws of the country they stay in do not find it very hard to integrate. Problems arise for those migrants who break the laws of the country they stay in. Besides, the socio-political situation in Western countries is not quite complex, and even the economic crisis in the Euro zone actually was not reflected on the migrants’ situation. But here the migrants face the problem of not knowing the language. That is why many rural residents still leave for Russia, since they do not have problems with the Russian language in that country. Whereas it is mostly the educated part of the youth, who at least know the English language, that leaves for Western countries, or those who have to leave the country for political reasons.
- What is the migration policy led by the state? How does the migration policy of Russia, European or other states impact on the migration situation in Azerbaijan?
- The paradox consists in the fact that even though Azerbaijan had to encounter large scale migration which involved one third of the population of the Republic after the collapse of the USSR and independence, for a long time the power of the country was unwilling to seriously consider the implementation of a migration policy and the creation of a special state structure for migration issues.
The situation began to change at the end of the 1990s when international humanitarian organizations that used to assist refugees left the country. At the same time labor migration processes intensified, which, as a result, compelled the Azerbaijani administration to pay closer attention to migration problems. In fact, this happened due to the active operation of the International Organization for Migration (IOM). In April 1997 IOM and the government of Azerbaijan established a joint Commission to work out the Joint Migration Management Program for Azerbaijan. Due to the operation of this commission, over 50 legal acts were passed in the mid 2000s, including the Law on Migration (December 22, 1998) and the Law on Labor Migration (October 28, 1999). But the main factor to ensure closer attention to migration was the abrupt aggravation of the Azerbaijani and Russian relations in 2006, which finally forced the power of Azerbaijan to pay closer attention to the situation the migrants were in. The State Program on Migration which stipulated that the intensification of the migration processes in Azerbaijan called forth the “necessity of implementing a policy on migration which shall comply with the national interests” was ratified by the Decree of the President of Azerbaijan in July 2006. To put it differently, only in 2006, that is to say 15 years after Azerbaijan’s actual independence and 18 years after the start of the Karabakh conflict, Azerbaijan started to design its own migration policy. Finally, on March 19, 2007, pursuant to a Presidential Decree, the State Migration Service was established which is responsible to design “the state policy on migration, to develop an administrative system, to regulate and predict migration processes, to coordinate the activities of the relevant state bodies.” Thus, currently Azerbaijan has a special state structure that is responsible for the design of a migration policy and the solution of problems, related to migration.
