Work abroad blessing and curse for Tajikistan

When Tajikistan votes to elect its president Wednesday, Rano Mansurova’s husband will not be joining her to cast his ballot in the capital Dushanbe but will be thousands of kilometres away in Russia.

The Mansurovs are just one of thousands of Tajik families torn apart by the ex-Soviet state’s enduring economic crisis, which has forced an estimated one million men of working age to seek work abroad, mainly in Russia.

Many voters heading to the polling stations on Wednesday in polls expected to re-elect strongman President Emomali Rakhmon for a fourth term will be women, whose absent husbands and fathers are working abroad.

And while cash sent back home has helped many edge away from poverty, increased reliance on remittances has also taken a toll on Tajik families.

“My husband left to earn money to feed the family, so that the children can go to school and grow up healthy,” says Rano Mansurova, who is raising four children in a modest house in the outskirts of Dushanbe.

“There had been days when we could not afford bread. To buy food and clothing I had to sell my wedding jewelry.”

Now, while her husband is working in Russia, the family receives a monthly money transfer of around $300 — enough to support the children and even set a little aside.

The remittances of Tajiks working abroad have become so significant they make up a substantial chunk of Tajikistan’s GDP and provide the weak economy with a crucial lifeline.

But the ability to make ends meet comes with a price, says Mansurova, 32: “Children are growing up without a father.”

‘It’s key to survival’

After the collapse of Soviet rule in the mountainous Central Asian country, Tajikistan went through a civil war, which forced qualified workers to flee and most teetering industries to shut down.

Production of a 1970-era aluminium smelter and cotton now account for 60 percent of all of the exports from the country bordering Afghanistan, the weakest economy of the former Soviet Union, where 40 percent live in poverty.

In 2012, migrant labourers have sent home about $3.8 billion, nearly half of the country’s GDP. That made it the most remittances-dependent country in the world, according to the World Bank. In 2013, the number is expected to top $4 billion.

This great dependance has even pushed authorities to cease publishing the data starting this year, according to the head of Tajik National Bank Abdujabbor Shirinov who said in July that the figures are too politicised.

Most Tajiks who travel to Russia work in construction jobs, sell vegetables at markets, and perform other menial tasks.

They are undeterred by low pay, work injuries, unsanitary and unsafe housing, and attacks and harassment by anti-migrant nationalist youth.

Last year, over a thousand corpses of Tajik nationals were brought home from Russia. This year, about 458 were brought home in the first six months, with 41 being victims of violent crime, according to the interior ministry.

“My husband was badly beaten, he was hit with a heavy metal object over the head, when he worked as a taxi driver in Moscow,” said Mumuluk Berdiyeva, 43. “He asked his passengers to pay the fare.”

“Thank God he survived. Now he is disabled, but he wants to leave for work again,” she said.

Without labour migration, Tajikistan could have been suffering from hunger and unrest, said economist Khodjamakhmed Umarov.

“Without it, normal life in the country would be impossible,” he said. “It’s a key to survival for many families.”

But the scale of it “also created big problems”: it breaks up families and skews demography at home, where some 400,000 young girls cannot find husbands since many young men choose to start families in Russia, he said.

A UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) study found that families of migrant workers, while financially better off, suffer from depression and other psychological problems, said spokesman of Unicef in Tajikistan Akobir Zohidov.

Last month, Tajikistan ratified an agreement that extends Russia’s military base in the country to 2042. The base consists of thousands of troops stationed near three Tajik cities.

In exchange the Kremlin agreed to extend the maximum work stay in Russia for Tajik citizens, who already need no visa, from one to three years. The new rules have to be ratified by the Russian parliament before going into force.