On March 18, the lives of hundreds of thousands of migrants across Russia were turned upside down. That day, the country closed its borders with the outside world in order to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Right until the beginning of April, the embassies of Central Asian states chartered flights to evacuate their citizens from Russia. Nevertheless, most Central Asian migrants have remained in the country — albeit without jobs and without livelihoods.
Forty-four year old Madina Mamajanova from Khujand is one of them. She is the sole provider for her two children, who live with her parents in her home country of Tajikistan. Madina has worked in Russia since 1999; March 18 was her last day on the job as a chef in a Moscow restaurant. Having sent all her money home to her family, Madina now faces a tough situation: she has no money left to pay her rent, but cannot more work. In February, she sent her daughter back to Tajikistan to live with her parents. She's relieved to have done so; in a crisis situation it's easier to survive alone.
"At the end of March, I received my last paycheque for 12 shifts. But a third — 9,500 rubles (£104) — was deducted from all the chefs' wages for allegedly spoiling the products," Madina says. "My landlord didn't reduce the rent, but just deferred payment for a month. I'm running out of money; I'm ready to work as a cleaner or to look after the sick, but I can't find anything."
Since she left the restaurant, Madina has only been invited to one interview. The job in question will only start once the country's quarantine measures are lifted. But that doesn't seem likely to happen soon (on May 7, Moscow's Mayor Sergey Sobyanin extended the capital's quarantine until May 30 — ed.) On more than one occasion, Madina has considered leaving the country as soon as the borders are open again. However, she was dissuaded by the fact that "there's even less work over there [in Tajikistan]."
Give me work, so I have something to live on and some way of supporting my parents
"I'm not asking the authorities for money or for handouts. Just give me work, so that I have something to live on and some way of supporting my parents," Madina exclaims.
It's important to remember that Central Asian migrants faced xenophobia and discrimination in Russia long before COVID-19 arrived on the scene. But the border closures and quarantine restrictions have exacerbated their already precarious situation, leaving many unemployed, unprotected, and without any choice as to where to wait out the pandemic.
No job, no ticket
There are thousands of people like Madina in Moscow. Human rights activist and lawyer Zarnigor Omonillayeva notes that migrant women were among the first to suffer the consequences of the pandemic:
"In Russia, migrant women are mainly employed in the service sector and as cleaners — the sectors of the economy which were the first to shut down. The first calls we received about mass layoffs and unpaid wages came in mid-March, and came from women. The highest number of layoffs came on March 27-28, and many people did not receive their wages in full. They'd worked for almost the entire month, yet received only half their wages or nothing at all," remarks the lawyer.
According to data from December 2019, there are over 1.6 million migrants living in Moscow, mostly from the five post-Soviet republics of Central Asia. They mostly work in the service sector, housing and communal services or on construction sites. These sectors of the economy, again, were those most hard hit by the self-isolation regime which was introduced in Moscow on March 30. Nevertheless, dismissals of migrant workers from these jobs began earlier, in mid-March.
Those left without work were unable to pay for their employment permits. These documents are required of all foreign citizens with visa-free access to Russia (with the exception of those from fellow members of the Eurasian Economic Union: Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan). The initial registration of an employment permit costs 12,750 rubles (£140), followed by monthly payments thereafter. In Moscow, a monthly payment comes to 5,350 rubles (£60) — a large sum to an unemployed person. Therefore, migrants, human rights activists, and embassy staff have been appealing to President Vladimir Putin through social networks and mass media to cancel these payment requirements.
The authorities have met migrants halfway, but they took their time. On March 19, the Ministry of Internal Affairs allowed migrants to apply for new work permits and extend their temporary residency permits from Russia. Given that the country's borders were already closed, this allowed many migrants to stay in the country legally. A month later, on April 18, Putin passed a decree exempting migrants from payments for their work permits from March 15 to July 15. The validity of temporary residence permits and migration cards have been extended for the same period. Migrant workers breathed a sigh of relief. However, nobody at the time expected that the self-isolation measures would drag on until May.
Zarnigor Omonillayeva says that at first, migrants encountered no problems. They paid their rents from March's wages and cancelled their monthly payments for work permits. But by the end of April, they had started to run out of money and appealed to human rights activists for help.
Omonillayeva recalls their cries for help: "I'm starving! I don't have money for groceries or rent! What should we do?"
