DUSHANBE, November 5, 2008, Asia-Plus  -- An international conference formally titled “Regulation of Labor Migration” was held at Russian-Tajik Slavic University (RTSU) in Dushanbe on November 4.  

Staged by RTSU in cooperation with Russia’s Ministry of Education and Science and Center for Social Programs and Innovations (Moscow), the conference brought together representatives of government bodies as well as international and local NGOs dealing with labor migration issues. 

The conference discussed issues related to regulating labor migration and raising legal awareness and professional skills of labor migrants      

The conference participants noted that labor migrant training programs have worked in Russia since 2007 and they include compulsory Russian language test.

Speaking at the conference, Zeinal Gadjiyev, head of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) Mission to Tajikistan, noted that Russia adopted a new migration law in 2007 that had simplified the order of migrant’s staying in the country; registration system had been replaced with the notifying one.  

The conference participants also noted that many labor migrants did not have specialties and it was necessary to organize special training courses for them.  They noted that that problem should be solved at the governmental level.    

Speaking at the meeting, Rafiqa Musoyeva, chairpersons of the Association of Power Engineering Specialists of Tajikistan and the ex-Minister of Labor and Social Protection, noted that 24 licensed and 77 unauthorized agencies dealing with external labor migration currently operated in the country.