Tag: Uzbekistan

Photo by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Used with permission.

This article was written by Shukhat Hurramov for Vlast.kz and published on January 5, 2025. An edited version is published on Global Voices under a media partnership agreement. 

Living and working in Russia with an Uzbek passport is becoming increasingly dangerous. Uzbekistan’s government is trying to redirect traditional labour migration flows to other countries.

The killing in mid-December of Russian general Igor Kirillov and his assistant in Moscow was pinned on an Uzbek citizen, who allegedly confessed. Russian authorities said he was recruited and trained by Ukrainian intelligence services. After every such incident, allegedly involving Central Asians, waves of xenophobia hit migrant communities.

On the way out

Mukhabbat, 65, has three sons who all work in Russia. She lives in Yakkabag, a small town in southern Uzbekistan. When she talks about her sons, her voice becomes shaky, her eyes swell up with tears. Their children, her grandchildren, sleep in the next room.

“My heart pounds when I hear about how the police beat people who just came to work. After the war began, my sons told me that they were offered Russian citizenship if they joined the Russian army. I cried and asked them not to do this. For the sake of their children,” Mukhabbat said, wiping away her tears.

There are no young people on the streets of the village of Kishlik, which is a couple of hours’ drive from the southern city of Samarkand and not far from Yakkabag. Most of them have gone to earn money in Tashkent or abroad.

Old pensioners sit around a small village store. They said that there once were enough jobs and money for everyone. Now, Uzbekistan’s provincial youth have gone elsewhere as the local opportunities have dried up. The group said they miss their children and grandchildren. They know well about the worsening attitude toward migrant workers in Russia.

Photo by Migrant.uz. Used with permission.

Dependence on Russia

The Uzbek government now plans to redirect migrant workers, who are traditionally traveling to Russia, to other high-income countries. Prime Minister Abdulla Aripov said in November 2024:

In 2025 alone, we plan to take measures to employ more than 200,000 citizens in 21 economically developed countries, such as Germany, Great Britain, Japan, South Korea, Israel, Canada, Poland, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and others.

According to official data, there are currently 1.14 million Uzbek migrant workers abroad. At the beginning of the year, there were 1.7 million. These figures, however, only reflect those who hold work permits. The real figure is certainly higher because many work without papers.

Here is a YouTube video about Uzbek migrant workers in Germany.

In November, Aripov also presented to parliament his cabinet’s Action Program for the near future, based on the presidential strategy “Uzbekistan-2030”. In addition to redirecting labour migration flows, it provides for the creation of more than 2.5 million “high-paying jobs” within the country and improves working conditions in the agricultural sector.

The country’s economy, especially in rural areas, depends on remittances that migrant workers send to their families. In the first ten months of 2024 alone, remittances amounted to more than USD 12 billion — 34 percent higher than in the same period in 2023.

According to the Central Bank, USD 9.8 billion (or 78 percent of the total volume of money transfers) came from Russia, and over USD 600 million came from Kazakhstan.

Alisher Ilkhamov, Director of London-based Central Asia Due Diligence, believes that the issue of redistributing the flow of migrant workers from Uzbekistan has been on the agenda for a long time. Ilkhamov told Vlast in an interview:

The massive numbers of migrants going to Russia has created a dependency, limiting Uzbekistan’s sovereignty and creating significant risks for Uzbek migrants themselves, because of their being forced to participate in the war in Ukraine and the anti-migrant hysteria unleashed in Russia.

Botir Shermukhammedov, the editor-in-chief of Migrant.uz, believes that it is currently impossible to redirect the entire flow of migrants to high-income countries. He argued:

We must understand that this is a very long and complex process. In 2023, the Agency for External Labor Migration sent only 38,000 Uzbeks to work abroad, instead of the planned 200,000. In my opinion, the agency, with its existing infrastructure, is not at all ready to send as many as 200,000 of our fellow citizens a year to work abroad. There are simply not as many applications.

Although the flow of new migrant workers to Russia has noticeably decreased, Shermukhammedov believes that it is still necessary to negotiate with Russian officials on the repeated violations of their labour rights as well as their recruitment for the war.

Despite the government’s willingness to employ some of the returnees from Russia, this policy is unlikely to succeed. Uzbekistan’s population now stands at more than 37.5 million people, 22.5 million of whom are employed. According to official data, the unemployment rate is declining, but a wave of returnees, as well as those deported by the Russian authorities, could spoil these optimistic statistics.

“I know Russian, but now I am learning English”

Russia and Kazakhstan remain the favourite destinations for migrant workers from Uzbekistan. The exact number of Uzbeks working abroad is difficult to ascertain. The Agency for External Labor Migration claims that there are about 2–3 million people. Some experts say the figure could be as high as five million.

During his visit to Tashkent in May 2024, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin promised that “the Russian authorities are doing and will do everything necessary to provide decent working conditions and social protection for Uzbek citizens” working in Russia.

Despite his promises, the attitude towards migrant workers in Russia is only worsening. This is especially noticeable after the terrorist attacks in the Moscow region in the spring of 2024 and the recent murder of a high-ranking official of the Ministry of Defence, Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, and his assistant allegedly by an Uzbek citizen.

Here is a YouTube video about raids against Central Asian migrant workers in Russia.

A wave of xenophobia, as well as pressure to enlist with the Ministry of Defense, forced many Uzbeks and people from other Central Asian republics to return to their homeland. Since the beginning of this year, more than 467,000 labour migrants have returned to Uzbekistan: 257,000 from Russia, 129,000 from Kazakhstan, 14,000 from Korea, and more than 66,000 from other countries, the government reported.

Ilkhom, 44, is a native of Andijan in eastern Uzbekistan. He worked in Russia for more than twenty years. In mid-October 2023, he was summoned to one of the St. Petersburg police departments and persistently offered to enlist in the army.

In Uzbekistan, enlisting for a foreign army is punishable by up to 10 years in prison and Ilkhom knows this. Ilkhom said that he was eventually released, but continued to be summoned afterwards. This pressure led him to decide to leave Russia for good.

I know that the Russian army fighting in Ukraine needs soldiers, but this is not our war. Some of my fellow countrymen have agreed to become contractors and go to the front. They are attracted by money and the opportunity to obtain citizenship.

Now, Ilkhom works as a taxi driver in Tashkent. “Maybe I will return to Russia, but only after the war is over. Or maybe I will go to another country. My Russian is not bad, but now I am learning English,” said Ilkhom while contemplating his future.