Rights abuses of Russia’s migrant builders and their families

Migrant builders in Russia face widespread abuse, said a human rights report.

Abusive employers, employment agencies and police are creating a rising climate of hate-fuelled violence against migrants, worsened by the global financial crisis, said the study.

Withholding wages, failing to provide contracts and unsafe working conditions are widespread at construction sites across Russia, according to the report. Workers were unwittingly trafficked into forced labour by employment agencies that promised building jobs but delivered workers to employers who confiscated their passports and forced them to work unpaid. In some cases, the study found, these workers were held and beaten.

It is not only the workers themselves who suffer from such rights abuses, but their families and children often live harsh lives by association. Children of migrant workers are often denied equal education, have poorer standards of living, accommodation and healthcare.

"Migrant construction workers come to Russia for decent jobs and instead find violence and exploitation," said Jane Buchanan, a researcher for the campaign group, Human Rights Watch. "Sadly, violence seems to be a fact of life for many migrant workers in Russia," said Buchanan. "Whether it's employers trying to intimidate their workers, police roughing them up during a shake-down, or hate-motivated attacks by regular citizens, Russia's migrant workers are vulnerable at almost every turn."

More than 40% of Russia's four to nine million migrant workers are in the construction industry, which before the global economic crisis had been key to Russia's growth. Looking to escape poverty and unemployment, most migrant workers come from other countries of the former Soviet Union. Most of them can enter Russia without a visa.
The exploitation and abuse in the report was uncovered at a time of Russia's phenomenal economic growth. Now with the Russian economy suffering the impacts of the global financial crisis, migrant workers and their families are even more at risk of violence, abuse and exploitation as they are seen as scapegoats for the country’s economic problems.

Many migrant workers face also now face losing their jobs entirely after Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said last month that the 2009 labour quota for migrant workers should be slashed by half, to improve prospects for Russians. "Non-payment of wages - an increase since the [economic] crisis - is an abuse of labour rights, and the current layoffs are not consistent with employment contracts and the labour code," Nilim Baruah, for the International Labour Organisation in Moscow told Independent Press Service.

Written by Hayley Jarvis for SOS Children