A Tajik Migrant is beaten up in a supermarket brutal. Instead of dragging the offender to justice, is to be deported, the Tadschikin. In Russia, unfortunately, not an isolated case.
For Derja (Name changed by the editors), it is a day like any other. She leaves her work in a bakery in the Moscow suburb chelkovo. To wait home the little sons of the lone Tadschikin who immigrated some years ago to Russia. It is March and the streets of snow. Derja stops at a supermarket. You don’t suspect that you will shortly be the victim of a brutal attack.
A few months later Derja recalls in a cafe. “As I entered the shop, recognized me, the seller,” she says. “My son had been admitted months earlier to the hospital,” explains Derja. “He had eaten a yogurt, the us had sold, although he was already expired.” The store Manager of the super market had done then, the duty officer seller responsible.
And have now started to vaccinate Derja dam. “Why are these Tajiks in our business? The are all thieves!”, did you call Derja and then an insult to the other ejected. Derja have initially ignored the seller. “Then she threatened me that her husband work for the police. She said that he would provide for my deportation,” she recalls.
The scene of the crime supermarket Here Derja was attacked and beaten
The seller goes off on Derja. It strikes in with a barcode scanner on Derjas head, until the Tadschikin falls to the ground. The seller it occurs several times in the stomach. None of the store’s customers come to her aid.
As Derja comes to, is your dizzy. From her eyes the blood is running. She leaves the Store, puts snow on her swollen face and calls the police.
Xenophobia is rising, with fears of the future
Xenophobic attitudes in Russia. About every fourth Russian support determined the idea of “Russia for the Russians”, in 2018, a survey by the independent opinion research Institute Lewada. Discriminatory advertisements for housing as “housing only for rent in Russian families” far. More than a third of the respondents towards such ads positive. In addition, around two-thirds of the surveyed Russians found, the government should restrict the influx of migrants is stronger.
Karina Pipia, a sociologist at Lewada Institute, explains, the Russian population had been unsettled by the economic problems, the pension reform and the concomitant weakening of the welfare state. This “collective Irritation,” would you project in the Form of xenophobia on migrants.
In times of economic Stagnation and growing fears for the future, many Russians are of the opinion that migrants would take away jobs. Guest workers in Russia do today is often hard Work for a low wage, not enough Russians to find.
Conflicting signals: the Kremlin wants to attract migrants
Almost every Twelfth in Russia immigrants. With more than eleven million migrants, Russia is, after the US and Germany in terms of numbers of immigration’s strongest country. Most of the immigrants come from former States of the Soviet Union: the Ukraine, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan.
Residential houses in the Moscow suburb of chelkovo
Derja is one of them. In 2015, she emigrated from Tajikistan to Russia. Like so many migrants they want to allow and your family a better life. The studied gynecologist and lawyer, was working in a hospital and then, after the birth of her second son, in a bakery.
In order to obtain the economic performance is maintained, Russia needs immigrants. 2018 died for the first Time in this decade, were again more people than are born. The population decline, Russia needs it is estimated that each year at least 300,000 immigrants.
The Russian government sends in their migration policies, conflicting signals. So, the Russian Deputy Prime Minister Olga Golodets in 2017, immigrants, Russia’s economic development accused of undermining. You be to qualified low and would be with their families a burden to the social system. On the other hand, under President Vladimir Putin wrote to the end of 2018, a decree, which provides for, to get up to tens of millions of Russian-speaking migrants by 2025 to Russia.
“Without social support, ended up on the street”
In the case of Derjas the local authorities of the Tajik Migrant did not help. “When the police arrived at the supermarket, they threatened me to deport and to give my children in an orphanage. As an Immigrant, I would have no right to complain,” recalls Derja. “I was hard attacked. As I wanted to drive to the hospital, instructed me to the police to tell the Doctors I fell.”
20 days spent Derja in the hospital. On x-ray images, you can see fractures in the skull. Due to a brain injury, their vision is to become a eye worse. “I often feel dizzy,” she says for months after the attack. “Can’t I, until today.”
The police continued their case to the public Prosecutor. Instead, it is initiated against Derja even a criminal case. It is to be designated on the basis of allegedly invalid registration papers from Russia.
The case became aware of, the Russian NGO “civic assistance”. It provides Derja a lawyer and prevented their expulsion. Finally, the seller goes to court. She will be sentenced on the basis of a “brawl” and has to pay the Russian state a penalty – the equivalent of less than 100 Euro. Derja is appealing. The process is still running.
Crackdown against illegal migrant workers on the Russian wholesale market
“The Russian authorities deny migrants their fundamental human rights”, – stated in a report by Experts of the “Foreign Policy centre”. Instead, the existing legislation would encourage abuse by authorities for political purposes, or corruption.
Also Derja finds that the Russian state has abandoned them. “Without social support, I would have landed, perhaps, on the road,” she says.
Due to the low penalties threatened in may, her doctor, rent and living costs can not settle. Subsequently, the NGO “civil assistance” started a call for donations. Many people responded to this, and within five days the required sum came together.
“What if I died?”, ask Deja. “In court, I will fight for my own justice. People should learn to understand that migrants are also human beings.”