Acknowledging Contribution of Migrants to their Communities

Far from home, thinking about home

Hundreds of thousands of labour migrants from Tajikistan head to the Russian Federation and other countries every year to seek work. In addition to the enormous economic, social and cultural contributions they make to their host nations, these migrants also provide significant support to their home communities. Although they are underacknowledged in public debates, the positive socio-cultural and economic impacts of migrants on origin communities have been well documented by research, and it is well documented that migrants help to maintain stability by supporting local economies and stimulating economic growth.

Some key positive impacts migrants have in their home countries are:

• Sending money home;  
• Decreasing pressure on local employment opportunities and resources;
• Introducing new skills and knowledge to the origin community;
• Improving families’ access to education, health, and other social services;
• Enhancing national socioeconomic systems by returning as skilled professionals;
• Stabilizing and boosting home economies by improving families’ purchase power, etc.

$30 billion in 10 years

The positive social and cultural impacts of migration for Tajikistan are yet to be researched, but local economies and social stability are known to be supported by remittances, which annually form a large percentage of local GDPs. Worldwide, remittances remain the most widely recognized contribution of labour migrants to their home countries.

 <Table: cross-border money transfers from the Russian Federation to Tajikistan, Russian Federation Central Bank>

Bridges for villages, schools for children  

Even when they are far from home for many years, migrants play diverse socio-cultural and economic roles in their origin countries. Money transfers are often used by families and communities to meet basic living needs, or by returned migrants and family members as a means to create new businesses. In this way, migration boosts small-scale entrepreneurship in origin countries and empowers family members by improving access to education and health services. Migrants are also frequently engaged in infrastructural, social, and humanitarian projects in their home communities initiated by the state, local communities, or by migrants themselves. Just a few examples of projects supported by migrants in the IOM project targeted area are:

• Migrants paid to construct bridges in Hamadoni, Kulob, and Qubodiyon;
• Migrants brought electricity to their home villages in Shahritus and Hamadoni;
• Migrants brought drinking water to their villages in Kulob;
• Migrants cleaned an irrigation canal in Nosiri Khisrav;
• Migrants built and repaired medical facilities in Kulob;
• Migrants repaired a school in Shahritus and constructed new classrooms in Qubodiyon;
• Migrants repaired local mosque in Shahritus.

Thousands of new and skilled hands in Tajikistan

Behind the statistics of arrivals and returns, deportations and dollars, there are ordinary human faces and names. With financial support from the Government of the United Kingdom, IOM Tajikistan implemented the project “Community Stabilization through Returned Migrant Reintegration in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan during and after COVID-19”. Between October 2020 and May 2021, some 2,500 returned migrants in Tajikistan attended reintegration sessions as part of this project and learned about job opportunities, vocational courses, skills certification, health (and other available social) services, and business development. The sessions, held in Kulob, Hamadoni, Nosiri Khusrav, Shahritus and Qubodyion, covered 89 per cent of jamoats and 65 per cent of the villages in the Project’s selected cities and districts. One hundred of the most active beneficiaries brought their business ideas to fruition with small grants. Moreover, many project beneficiaries answered a call by IOM to volunteer in their local communities by cleaning rubbish, fixing public amenities, and performing other community services.

Story of Bahriddin

Bahriddin had been migrating to the Russian Federation for 16 years on a seasonal basis before he was issued a re-entry ban in 2019, resulting in his return to Kulob in the South of Tajikistan. With the money he earned in Russia, Bahriddin had been able to build a house for his family, educate his two sons (who are now both university students), and take care of his parents and siblings. But the biggest reward of all were the skills he developed in interior design, a profession which he mastered while in migration and the skills of which are in demand in Tajikistan. Schoolchildren and teachers in Kulob now have the chance to judge Bahriddin’s skills, as in April 2021 he joined a volunteer group of returnee migrants who are repairing a school in the town within the scope of an IOM initiative.

IOM Tajikistan expresses gratitude to the United Kingdom Government for funding and to the Government of Tajikistan for supporting the “Community Stabilization through Returned Migrant Reintegration in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan during and after COVID-19” project, run from October 2020 to May 2021.