Russia wants migrant workers from Kyrgyzstan to continue to come and work on a legal basis, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday.
“We value Kyrgyz citizens coming to Russia,” he said at a news conference with his Kyrgyz counterpart. “We are interested in them working on a legal basis and that their rights are protected.”
A bilateral working group on protection of labor migrant rights operates under an intergovernmental agreement, he said.
“We have agreed to prepare a meeting of the group as soon as the Kyrgyz side is ready for that,” Lavrov said.
Between 500,000 and 1 million Kyrgyz nationals live and work in Russia according to estimates.
In January Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin proposed an array of robust measures, including stiff laws, to deal with illegal migration.
He has called for the expulsion and bans for migration law-breakers of five to ten years or longer to re-enter Russia, legal proceedings against the owners of "rubber homes" where migrants register illegally, and criminal proceedings for those who take on illegal migrants at work and organize flop-houses.
Current administrative penalties for those violations are “purely symbolic” and therefore ineffective, he said.
The prime minister proposed making exams in Russian, history and the basics of Russian law mandatory for migrants from 2013. That, he said, will help them to adapt in society.
