Posted 30 апреля 2020,, 13:47

Published 30 апреля 2020,, 13:47

Modified 24 декабря 2022,, 22:36

Updated 24 декабря 2022,, 22:36

Locked in a foreign land. In Russia, the crime is growing among migrants who have lost their jobs

Locked in a foreign land. In Russia, the crime is growing among migrants who have lost their jobs

30 апреля 2020, 13:47
Фото: Fb.com
The question of what to do with migrant workers during the epidemic is escalating in Russia every day. Millions of labor migrants from Central Asia were left without work and livelihoods.

They cannot return to their homeland, because the subject is not diplomatically resolved, and there is nothing left to live for. Many go to theft and robbery for food.

Julia Suntsova

The number of crimes committed by migrants has increased in an epidemic and self-isolation, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs. In January-March, foreign citizens and stateless persons committed 9.5 thousand crimes in Russia, which is 2.2% more than in the same period last year. Almost 8.5 thousand crimes fall to the share of citizens of the CIS member states: an increase of + 3.1%, "follows from the statistical reports of the Ministry of Internal Affairs on the state of crime.

The growth of “counter” crimes, however, is three times as much: in the three months of 2020, Russians committed 3.9 thousand crimes against foreign citizens and stateless persons, which is 5.9% more compared to the same period in 2019.

The citizens of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan would like to, but cannot leave Russia (even by deportation by court), only Kyrgyzstan didn’t close the border, but there are no air links with the country, and it is possible to reach Kyrgyzstan by land only through Kazakhstan, but it also closed the borders for driving in.

The Foreign Ministry, of course, could return the unemployed migrant workers to their homeland with minimal pressure on the leaders of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. But at this stage, diplomats apparently do not want to connect their resources to influence Central Asia, whose foreign policy has been built for decades in many respects on providing countries with the Russian labor market.

In addition, the lobbying efforts of the main employers of foreign workers - capital builders and officials are still enough to block the decisions of the federal authorities on the expulsion of migrants. They hope that in the near future the interrupted work will be restored.

According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, more than 2.5 million labor migrants were locked up in Russia. But the ministry considers only officially employed, and the actual number, along with illegal migrant workers, may differ significantly. The epidemic exposed yet another pressing problem in Russia: there is no single agency in the country that would provide a mechanism for comprehensive control over all flows of people entering.

Mass crime in the event of loss of work by millions of migrants will be a serious challenge for the Russian Guard and the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

“Migrant workers, past whom the government’s support measures have passed, can be placed in conditions when they are forced to commit crimes to meet basic needs. This can lead to ethnic conflict. Already today, information is spreading in social networks that groups of migrants are on duty near large hypermarkets and are looking for potential victims for robbery. I believe that we will have a rampant crime, we will have attacks, we already have people who have already run out of money. What will happen by April 30 is a disaster? ”, Political analyst Mikhail Delyagin notes. They do not want to expel migrants from Russia, first of all, unscrupulous business and bureaucracy that profit from them, he adds.

In the parking lot near the Auchan hypermarket, two Asian men approached a 29-year-old resident of the Moscow Region with a screwdriver and demanded that they give them bags of groceries bought for 8,200 rubles, Criminal Russia reported in mid-April.

Earlier in the capital, five Uzbeks were arrested, who attacked a father and son on the street and severely beat them, taking 2000 rubles. During interrogations, they reported that they were left without work and they needed money for food and accommodation.

Cases of migrant attacks on taxi drivers with the aim of taking money are recorded.

"I worked as a second cook in a restaurant, but when the quarantine began, the restaurant closed and we were all fired. Where did we go? The buildings do not work, and which ones work, they didn’t work there. The brothers said that there were no orders and no earnings in the taxi, the courier - 1000 rubles a day! You feel like eating, you have to pay for a bed, a family of 12 people is waiting for money at home! I repent, apologize and not punish very much - I didn’t kill anyone, I just showed a knife "- this was explained to the police by one of the arrested people resident of Uzbekistan.

In Moscow per day, there are dozens of cases of extortion by migrants from the CIS. Only on Easter Sunday, there were three cases of guest workers taking money away from Auchan shopping center on Teply Stan and Metro on Kashirskoye Shosse, trying to rip gold earrings out of their ears and take away a smartphone and a grocery bag in Rostov-on-Don, stealing food bags in Samara, robbery attempts in St. Petersburg and the Far East.

Last week, in Zelenograd, a crowd of migrants was chasing the car along the roadway with fists. Video recording of the event hit the social networks.

“There was a black car, and there was a crowd around it. All non-Russians. It’s certainly not Caucasians, whether they are Uzbeks or Tajiks, ”one of the motorists passing by commented on the incident and did not deny that this kind of aggression is frightening. The police detachment that arrived had already not found anyone, because the crowd fled.

The explosive growth of street crime - in just a couple of weeks, street gangs across the country in a few months - can become a reality if measures are not taken, experts say. The Presidential Administration has begun a series of consultations with representatives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, special services and the State Duma in order to calculate possible scenarios for the development of events, the telegram channel “Vakhter from Old Square” reports. Actually, legalization is now urgently connected with probable unfavorable forecasts through the State Duma of the expanded powers of the power bloc.

The voice of the “Russian patriots”, entrepreneur Konstantin Malofeev urged all migrants to buy tickets to their homeland, with the exception of those for which employers are ready to directly bear financial guarantees.

50% of construction projects will close in the near future, and workers will be on the streets. Why do we need labor migrants during the economic crisis? Why do we need in such conditions the strangers 10 million who occupy our places? He said, referring to Kudrin’s forecast of 8 million unemployed at the time of the end of self-isolation.

LDPR leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky also supports him: “We need to stop the delivery of labor migrants to Russia. Due to the crisis, the number of unemployed may increase, and then our citizens will need free vacancies . In order not to offend Central Asia, we will give them orders for the production of melons, fruits and the like, so that they stay at home and work at home. We can even partially pay for these orders in advance, ”he said.

In the Agency for Strategic Initiatives ANO, the Russian Government, meanwhile, offered to help migrants with unemployment benefits in order to reduce the incidence of robbery and violence. Last week, the head of the Agency, Svetlana Chupsheva , appealed to Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin with the proposal to equate Russian citizens and pay them unemployment benefits for the duration of the epidemic.

The initiative was criticized by the Russians - it seems unfair to people to support migrants in the absence of tangible support for their own citizens.

All Central Asian diasporas and their leaders have supported the initiative and continue to say that Russia should provide assistance to workers locked up in the country.

Usman Baratov , president of the Vatandosh inter-regional Uzbek community, believes that labor migrants who have lost their jobs due to the coronavirus epidemic and at the same time are not able to leave their homeland due to border closures should receive help from the state. “Some have no money, but you need to pay for the apartment, you need to eat. Then let us provide state assistance, create packages with dry rations. Let the Ministry of Emergency Situations walk around and throw packages at each apartment so that people do not die of hunger, so that there is no social explosion, he says .

The issue of support should be decided collectively by the government of Russia and the country from which the migrant worker came, according to the Uzbek diaspora.

I positively assessed the proposal to equate the rights to receive unemployment benefits to citizens of the CIS and Russians and the Tajik diaspora in the Russian Federation.

“I think it’s time for a long time to decide what all citizens who are in the CIS space should be full citizens of Russia, because without Russia, I understand, it’s difficult today. I mean that (it’s necessary) to equate labor migrants who need in Russia, first of all, and, on the other hand, citizens themselves need jobs. More than 1 million citizens (of Tajikistan) in Russia, thanks to the Russian state, thanks to the Russian society, they still put up with us, "the chairman said in an interview with RIA Novosti all-Russian The Tajik Labor Migrants social movement Karomat Sharipov.

"Naturally, we support (the initiative), of course ... It would be a very big support from Russia," said Kubanychbek Kozhoyev, president of the all-Russian public organization "Kyrgyz Congress" .

The unanimity of the diasporas, however, does not facilitate the growing tension. The leaders of the Uzbek, Tajik and Kyrgyz diasporas have no real levers of influence on the Russian authorities in such complex issues. In addition, they are gradually losing credibility in their midst: the incomes of the overwhelming majority of workers have already disappeared, and prospects for resolving the situation are not visible and are not offered.

“The mood among migrants is extremely negative. Up to 90% of migrants are willing to commit crimes if they need funds for food. Most are ready to leave Russia and return to their countries in order to wait out the period of unemployment and are frankly unhappy that they cannot do this. The high percentage of those willing to commit crimes is explained, first of all, by the lack of the opportunity to return home, ”writes the telegram channel“ Vakhter from Staraya Ploshchad ”, referring to the theses of a source familiar with the upcoming special services report.

Meanwhile, not only migrants are ready to become criminals from hopelessness. In a poll by the Bureau project, almost a third of Russians said they were ready to go to crime if their savings were zeroed.

To the question "What are you ready to do if the savings are completely reset?" More than 60% of respondents said that they could break the law, including commit serious criminal offenses in order to provide for their families, with 3.3 thousand people taking part in the survey.

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