Last year, twenty-seven Tajiks were killed abroad, Tajikistan’s Prosecutor-General Yusuf Rahmon noted yesterday while presenting the report at the Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families in Geneva. 

As for the murder of Tajiks abroad, the national law enforcement services and the Prosecutor-General submitted requests to the law enforcement service of the country where the death occurred and the diplomatic missions monitored the investigations, Tajik chief prosecutor noted, according to Radio Liberty’s Tajik Service, locally know as Radio Ozodi.

Yusuf Rahmon reportedly noted that 94 Tajiks died as a result of violent death in 2013 and 49 in 2017.  

Tajik delegation members presenting the second periodic report of Tajikistan on measures taken to implement the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families include Prosecutor-General Yusuf Rahmon, Minister of Labor, Migration and Employment of Population Sumangul Taghoyzoda, Head of the Agency for Statistics Gulnora Hasanozoda and Head of the Department for Human Rights Guarantees at President’s Executive Office Abdujabbor Sattorzoda.       

According to OHCHS website, the Committee experts said that Tajikistan continued to be a country of origin of migrant workers; by some figures, one fourth of the population lived abroad.  The number of migrant workers was much higher than the official statistics of about 500,000 and could reach, by some accounts, two million, they said.  The Experts probed the system of protection of the rights of migrant workers and members of their families in Russia, a country that was not a party to the Convention and that remained the principal destination for Tajik migrants – 95 per cent worked there - including through bilateral and other cooperative agreements.  There was concern that measures taken remained inadequate to protect these migrant workers from exploitation, discrimination and hate crimes, and to ensure their effective access to justice and remedies.

Tajik chief prosecutor reportedly noted in his report that over the last 12 months, more than 484,000 citizens, of whom 419,000 were men, had left the country to work abroad.  The main destination countries, as before, were Russia for 96 per cent of the workers and Kazakhstan for three per cent of them.  During the same period, over 424,000 citizens had returned from working abroad, of whom 352,000 were men.  Tajikistan had taken up the Committee’s recommendation concerning the regulation of recruitment companies, even if only a small fraction of the Tajik citizens used their services.  Currently, there were 15 State and private recruitment companies that organized the sending of Tajik citizens to work abroad.  The pre-departure training of citizens had increased; in 2018 alone, more than 53,000 citizens had taken the State’s programs and training activities which helped them find jobs abroad.  Tajikistan had an embassy and five consular offices in Russia, as well as the representative office of the Ministry of Labor.  In Kazakhstan, there was an embassy in the capital and a general consulate in Alma Ata.  The main purpose of the consular network was to provide the protection of the rights of Tajik citizens abroad.  The shipment of the remains of deceased migrant workers was conducted free of charge by the national carrier, however, morgue services, paperwork, and the preparation of the body were not provided by the State.

Meanwhile, Tajikistan’s Ombudsman noted earlier that the bodies of 966 Tajik citizens were returned to Tajikistan from Russia in 2018.  

“According to data from the Interior, the bodies of 966 Tajik citizens were returned to Tajikistan from Russia last year.  Twenty-five of them were killed.  In 2017, Tajikistan received the bodies of 873 of its citizens from Russia and fifty-five of them died as a result of violent death,” says Ombudsman’s report.