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Speech of the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, Nina Karpachova, at the presentation to the Ukrainian Parliament of the Special Report on the Status of Observance and Protection of the Rights of Ukrainian Citizens Abroad April 2, 2003
The issue of Ukrainian citizens’ migration for employment abroad, until recently of almost no actuality in this country, has today developed into a problem of state importance. For several years in a row the subject of Ukrainian migrant workers has been a fixture in the press and on television, attracting attention of the entire society. Millions of Ukrainian migrant workers, most of them employed in Russia, Western Europe and North America, have compelled the government to assess in a new way its role in the protection of the rights and freedoms of our citizens. Regrettably, most of our countrymen abroad are illegal migrants and belong to one of the most discriminated and unprotected category of aliens whose rights are grossly infringed. In consequence, more and more of our countrymen abroad are appealing for help to Ukrainian bodies of state authority, in particular the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Quite a few of such appeals have been addressed to the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights. Every appeal is an expression of human pain and frustrated hopes of finding a personal solution or else saving the appellant’s dignity and frequently his life. Therefore, the Commissioner for Human Rights initiated a special monitoring to study the complex problems related to the status of observance and protection of human rights and freedoms of Ukrainian citizens abroad, above all of migrant workers. The purpose of this study is to make an in-depth analysis of the referred to issues and offer recommendations and proposals to improve the available mechanism of protecting the rights of Ukrainian citizens abroad, and also to formulate a long-term government policy in the domain of migration relations with allowance for the prospects of global development and the interests of Ukraine and its citizens. The Special Report is a monitoring, systemically analyzing the issues of migration for employment at the international, national and regional levels. When preparing the Report, the Commissioner for Human Rights used the information provided by ministries and agencies, Ukraine’s diplomatic missions abroad, the institutes of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, state administrations in the oblasts, banks, as well as the diplomatic missions of foreign states accredited in the country. Within the context of the issues under review the question arose as to the dimensions of migration for employment. Judging from Ukrainian official and unofficial sources, the number of Ukrainian migrant workers ranges from two to seven million people. Relevantly, the official data represent only individuals legally employed abroad. According to the information of the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy of Ukraine for the year 2002, over 20,000 Ukrainian citizens were temporarily employed abroad, mostly in such countries as Greece, Cyprus, Liberia and the United Kingdom. Within this period the consular department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine registered more than 30,000 Ukrainian migrant workers. According to expert estimates of the Ukrainian Embassy in the Russian Federation, about one million Ukrainian citizens are temporarily employed in Russia, while the seasonal peak reaches three million, the overwhelming majority of which work illegally. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs informed that about 300,000 Ukrainian citizens worked in Poland, 200,000 in Italy (about 500,000 by expert estimates, as reported during the recent visit of the Ukrainian Parliament Chairman to Italy), some 200,000 in the Czech Republic, 150,000 in Portugal, 100,000 in Spain, 35,000 in Turkey, and 20,000 in the US. In all, as expert estimates of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs show, over two million Ukrainian citizens work abroad illegally. In the opinion of the Commissioner, the real figure is a minimum of five million Ukrainian citizens who are working abroad every year. Taking into account that the country has 28 million citizens of employable age, at least every fifth economically active Ukrainian is working in another country. What makes millions of our countrymen seek a better lot elsewhere? The monitoring conducted by the Commissioner proves that underlying the migration processes is a plethora of reasons, the main ones being undoubtedly socioeconomic. What impacts considerably on migration for employment is the difference in wages our citizen receives at home compared with what he can earn in the country of his potential destination. An understanding of this difference can be gained by analyzing such economic indicators as per capita GDP and average wages in different sectors of the economy. According to the UN rating, Ukraine held 102nd place in the world by level of GDP in 2000, being far behind not only the countries of Western Europe, but also its immediate neighbors. On the whole, the average ratio between Ukraine’s GDP and the EU countries in 2000 was seven times lower and twice as low compared with the countries of Eastern Europe. The wage gap between the above-mentioned countries and Ukraine is even more apparent. According to the State Statistics Committee of Ukraine, wages in Ukraine’s industry in 2002 came to UAH 3.26 per hour, or US $0.6, i.e. two times less than in the Czech Republic, three times less than in Poland, over 27 times less than in Italy, and 53 times less than in Germany. However, it should be pointed out that our migrant workers earn less than the nationals of a respective country for the same qualification, and even much less if they work illegally. For all that, their earnings are higher than what their fellow countrymen receive back home. Poverty and unemployment are without any doubt the principal factors that compel our citizens to leave the country. In the First Annual Report in 2000, the Commission for Human Rights drew attention of all branches of power to the issues of poverty in Ukraine, which in itself is a violation of human rights, making it impossible to exercise other rights. Despite the expectations encouraged by economic growth, the poverty rate remains dangerously high. When judged against official data alone, the percentage of those living under the poverty line set at UAH 175 accounts on the average for 27% nationwide. The grimmest situation prevails in Transcarpathian oblast with a poverty rate of 47%, as well as in the Luhansk, Khmelnytsky, Kherson, Mykolaiv and Volyn oblasts and the Autonomous Republic of Crimea where the rate ranges from 33% to 38%. This means that on the average every fourth Ukrainian does not have enough resources to meet his minimum requirements. I remember how two years ago in Greece, during a visit to a prison with migrants earmarked for deportation I met with Ukrainian women who had worked illegally in that country and were detained for this offense. During a frank conversation with the Commissioner, one of them said: “If I had the opportunity to receive 200 hryvnias a month in Ukraine, I would’ve never gone to Greece.” Such words are repeated worldwide by hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian migrant workers. Apart from the mentioned dimensions of poverty, high unemployment rates also affect the migration processes. According to ILO figures, Ukraine’s unemployment rate at March 2002 was 10.6% of the economically active population from 15 to 70 years of age, i.e. 2.4 million Ukrainian citizens. Judging from the latest data of the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy, 3 million people are unemployed. In the opinion of the Commissioner for Human Right, the priority objective of dealing with the negative consequences of migration for employment abroad should be the pursuance of a balanced economic policy oriented primarily toward reducing poverty and unemployment, increasing the share of wages in the population’s real incomes, ensuring stable economic growth, and gradually approximating the incomes of Ukrainian citizens at first to the level of the neighboring countries (Russia, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary) and, eventually, to the level of Greece, Portugal and Italy whose economies are currently absorbing a substantial number of Ukrainian migrant workers. The loss of highly skilled labor, above all scientific workers of the highest professional qualification, is one of the consequences of migration for employment. This topic is not new for the Ukrainian society, but in light of the issues under review, it is gaining special importance. Experts estimate that the training of one specialist with a higher education costs about US $20,000. This means that each qualified migrant worker enriches the host country by this amount, while impoverishing the country of origin by the same amount. According to the State Statistics Committee, almost 90,000 Ukrainian citizens with a higher and 128,000 with an unfinished higher and secondary education officially emigrated from Ukraine during the period from 1997 to 2001. In the past ten years, 574 Doctors of Science and 907 Masters of Science (one third of them promising specialists under the age of forty) officially emigrated abroad. The Special Report of the Commissioner for Human Rights cites a distressing figure derived from expert estimates – Ukraine’s direct damage from the emigration of scientific and highly qualified specialists amounts to more than US $1 billion annually. At the same time chronic shortage of funding of Ukrainian science actually promotes a purpose-minded policy of the developed countries for attracting a highly qualified workforce: they design and support special programs and pursue a flexible migration and visa policy in relation to such migrants. It is painful to realize that for the past 15 years, while providing intellectual assistance almost to all developed countries, Ukraine is now facing the problem of preserving its human and intellectual potential, as 30% of Ukrainian scientists work for the economies of other countries. Migration for employment abroad disastrously affects the demographic situation in Ukraine. In most countries, mainly in the developed ones, there is a natural decline in population growth caused by steady ageing. According to expert estimates, by the year 2050 Italy’s population will shrink from 57 to 41 million, while in the United Kingdom from 59 to 56 million. Moreover, the expected share of the elderly in the most developed world countries will grow to 33%. According to the estimates of UN demography specialists, in the next 25 years the EU countries will need 135 million immigrants in order to retain the current ratio between the employed population and pensioners and keep up a sufficient labor force. The demographic situation in Ukraine is much more different than in other countries. While in such traditional suppliers of labor as the Philippines, India and Mexico there is a stable population growth and emigration does not cardinally impact on the demographic situation, Ukraine’s population has been steadily declining since 1993 because of a sharp decrease in birth rates and increase in death rates. Scientists predict that by 2026 the population size will drop to 42 million. Higher migration from Ukraine will mean that the population size will continue to shrink at a dangerous pace, what with the upward trend of larger numbers of migrant workers who stay for good in the countries where they sought employment. In the opinion of the Commissioner for Human Rights, there is an urgent need to build up a concept of Ukraine’s migration policy that would take into account the processes related to the departure of Ukraine’s citizens for work abroad and the entry into Ukraine of migrant workers from other countries. Frankly speaking, migration for employment abroad, apart from its negative aspects, also produces positive results. The main one is the substantial cash flows into the country, since the largest share of what the migrant workers earn is remitted to their homeland or brought in by them directly. According to the official estimates of the International Monetary Fund, the money migrant workers transferred in 1999 to Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and the Caribbean countries amounted to US $65 billion. If we take into account what had reached these countries through unofficial channels, the sum would be over US $100 billion. No such estimates are available in Ukraine and therefore it is extremely difficult to judge how much the migrant workers earn. A survey conducted in Ternopil oblast in 2001 by the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy jointly with the oblast state administration revealed that the migrant workers of Ternopil oblast were remitting about US $100 million annually, i.e. an average of US $4,000-6,000 per person. Some experts estimate that Ukrainian migrant workers earn over UAH 2 billion a month, i.e. about US $400 million. The largest part of this money returns to Ukraine. Undoubtedly, this benefits not only the families of migrant workers, but also the whole country, since unemployment rates go down, aggregate demand increases, and the market capacity enlarges, thereby positively affecting the economic situation, especially the development of production. Upon their return from abroad the migrant workers use a large share of the earnings to set up their own businesses, providing work for themselves and their relatives as well as creating jobs for others. After studying international experience in dealing with the issues of migrant workers, the Commissioner for Human Rights arrived at the conclusion that the government should create favorable conditions for transferring cash and reducing bank charges for such services so as to facilitate the remittance to Ukraine of what our citizens earn abroad. In the opinion of the Commissioner, the migrant workers’ money should be registered in order to accurately estimate the income of families and determine the subsistence minimum in the country. This can be achieved only by close cooperation with the regions. The migrant workers staying abroad can be separated into a number of categories. Ukrainian citizens legally, temporarily or permanently, residing abroad and in possession of the necessary work permits belong to the most protected category. Citizens of this category are working in accordance with bilateral agreements or treaties signed between Ukraine and other countries, such the Russian Federation, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Vietnam, Armenia and Belarus. Also, intermediaries recruit many Ukrainians for work in the US, Germany (programmers); Libya and Yemen (doctors); Mexico (scientists, teachers); Japan and Turkey (dancers); as well as Iran and Iraq (oil engineers) before the Iraq conflict. Besides, a lot of Ukrainians gained legal status after Greece and Portugal adopted national laws legalizing illegal migrants. Italy is expected to adopt similar legislation shortly. As the analysis of the Commissioner proved, such persons have ample opportunities to exercise most of their rights to proper conditions of work and remuneration and medical insurance, since they conclude written contracts with employers and are protected by operative legislation of the host country. If their rights are impaired, they can use a whole arsenal of legal protection mechanisms, including legal recourse. However, this category of Ukrainian citizens still experiences difficulties when standing up for their rights. This is true, in particular, for the Ukrainian women working in Turkey and Japan in the entertainment industry, nightclubs and restaurants, even when they have bilateral contracts with their employers. A typical example is the fate of a 25-year-old woman from the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, who in March 2002 departed for Japan with a contract concluded with a recruitment agency in Dniprodzerzhinsk. During her one and only telephone call to her mother she complained about the intolerable conditions of her job and the humiliations she suffered. On July 10, 2002 she was found hanged, and suicide was officially declared as the cause of her death. It goes without saying that given such a version of death, the Japanese police did not initiate a forensic investigation and her remains were cremated. The deceased was survived by two children four and five years of age for whose sake she had traveled to the end of the world. In response to her mother’s appeal, the Commissioner initiated an investigation. When it comes to protecting their rights, the majority of Ukrainian illegal migrant workers find themselves in a dismal situation. The very fact of their presence on the territory of another state is a good enough reason for their deportation, while their illegal employment is viewed as double violation of the law. Therefore, they evade, as a rule, any contacts with Ukrainian consular posts abroad in fear of being prosecuted for breaking the laws of the host country, which considerably limits the possibility to provide them any diplomatic and legal protection. The Commissioner for Human Rights believes that the very fact of a migrant worker’s violation of a host country’s laws should not imply deprivation of his human rights. Incidentally, I insist on a similar attitude to the illegal migrant workers on the territory of Ukraine. The conditions of work of Ukrainian migrant workers abroad are inconsistent with generally accepted standards: a working day can last 10 hours or even 18 hours. A typical violation of the migrant workers’ rights is the failure of employers to meet their commitments on remuneration. The Commissioner established cases when migrants, after having worked for a private employer for some time without receiving any pay whatsoever, were handed over to the police for subsequent deportation on the eve of settlement. It should be pointed out that the employers in the host countries are instrumental in enlarging the dimensions of illegal migration, because illegal labor offers them the opportunity to reduce production costs and flout legislatively established human rights standards. In the opinion of the Commissioner for Human Rights, an important area of government policy should be the continued conclusion of bilateral agreements on employment and social security to ensure for the migrant workers minimum social standards and guarantees of compliance with their rights. Relevant agencies, above all the Ministry of Labor and Ministry of Foreign Affairs should be constantly monitoring the existing bilateral and multilateral treaties in order to assess their effectiveness, because a lot of them are practically not working. Besides, the available universal and regional mechanisms for protecting migrant workers’ rights should also be used more extensively, especially as concerns speeding up the ratification of the European Convention on the Legal Status of Migrant Workers of 1977. On this issue the Commissioner for Human Rights submitted a proposal to the Cabinet of Ministers in December 2001. I believe that the accession to the said Convention would more adequately protect the rights of Ukrainian citizens working abroad, above all in the States Parties to the Convention, such as France, Italy, Portugal, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and Turkey, and in the future, in yet another four countries that signed the Convention – Belgium, Germany, Greece and Luxembourg. Another problematic issue is the activity of all sorts of recruitment agencies. According to unofficial data, up to 85% of Ukrainian migrant workers travel abroad by tourist visas (predominantly short-term). A lot of our countrymen also elicit the services of dubious employment or tourist agencies, which frequently under the guise of rendering tourist services actually recruit Ukrainian citizens for employment abroad, mostly illegally. According to the information of the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy, in 2002 Ukraine numbered 749 entities that held licenses to act as intermediaries for employment abroad. Over the past two and a half years 454 licenses were revoked, because the majority of these agencies were unscrupulous in complying with legislation and the terms of licensing. In the opinion of the Commissioner for Human Rights, all recruitment agencies should be constantly supervised for compliance with licensing terms and more stringent control should be exercised over tourist firms that engage in unlawful job placement abroad. Another issue under review in the Special Report is extremely painful for our society, namely compliance with the rights of Ukrainian seamen employed on alien ships. In the first Annual Report of the Commissioner for Human Rights, an entire chapter was devoted to this acute problem. Yet a monitoring conducted by the Commissioner proved that no changes for the better have occurred since then. Because of the crisis situation in the country’s economy and also for other reasons, the maritime industry has practically collapsed. For instance, the state-owned Black Sea Shipping Company has only seven ships with a displacement tonnage of about 50,000 tons out of its formerly operated 260 cargo ships with a displacement tonnage of three million tons and over 30 passenger ships. As a result, more than 20,000 skilled seamen lost their jobs. Neither is the situation any better with other shipping companies that lost a substantial part of their fleets. By expert estimates over 70,000 Ukrainian seamen do not hold permanent jobs. The lure of much higher wages abroad makes our seamen go out of their way to be hired by foreign shipowners. Numerous recruitment and placement agencies cynically avail themselves of the dire circumstances of our seamen. Ukrainian legislation is far from flawless in governing the activity of recruitment agencies; it does not even define such a term as crewing, let alone make allowance for the specific problems Ukrainian seamen have to deal with when hired by alien shipowners. Odessa alone has over 200 crewing companies and about 500 throughout the country. Most of the agencies are set up by people who lack proper knowledge of managing the business and are unfamiliar with the national legislation, not to say anything about the legislation of other countries, and leave the seamen in the lurch, bearing no responsibility when force majeure circumstances arise. All of these problems taken together as well as the absence of government control over the recruitment and placement of our seamen with alien shipowners lead a lot of the seamen into slavery when they cannot hope for any social protection. Considering the gravity of the issue, the Commissioner deems it necessary to: ■ improve national legislation on the activity of enterprises providing recruitment and placement services. To this end the Ukrainian Parliament should speed up adopting the Law On Enterprises Acting as Intermediaries for the Employment of Citizens Abroad and ratifying ILO Recruitment and Placement of Seafarers Convention No. 179 (1996) which provides for the most effective and all-embracing international standards of protection of seamen’s rights. Even in a short speech it is impossible not to dwell on a particularly vulnerable category of our countrymen abroad, i.e. those deprived of liberty. According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, some 10,000 Ukrainian citizens were arrested (detained) for one or another reason by the end of 2002, while more than 2,500 were serving sentences delivered by foreign courts. In 2002 the largest number of Ukrainian citizens deprived of liberty was registered in Spain, Germany, Russia, Poland, and the Czech Republic. Considering the substantial number of such citizens, a lot of problems related to compliance with their rights and freedoms arise, in particular: ■ right of the detained (arrested) and convicted to legal assistance and services of an interpreter; ■ long periods of pretrial investigation and judicial review of cases; ■ unsatisfactory conditions of custody (above all in Russia and other CIS countries); ■ non-application to Ukrainian citizens of preventive measures alternative to arrest. Besides, there have been frequent cases of discriminatory and biased attitudes to Ukrainian citizens by the police, investigators and judicial authorities of the host country (e.g., the inmates of Bilolenka prison near Warsaw complained to the Commissioner against the abasement of their human and national dignity when the Polish police apprehended them). Exercising the right to adequate legal assistance remains a major problem for our countrymen imprisoned abroad: the vast majority does not have enough means to pay for a lawyer’s services. The lawyers assigned by the state often do not adequately perform their functions, which causes a lot of complaints by the accused. Such facts are distinctly typical of the CIS and countries and some countries of Central Europe (Poland, Slovakia, Hungary). In this connection the Commissioner proposes that the budgets of Ukrainian consular posts include expenditures to pay for the legal assistance to Ukrainian citizens. In the opinion of the Commissioner, it is also advisable to make more frequent the practice of consular officers participating in court hearings, especially in cases where there is a reason to suspect prejudice against Ukrainians by investigating and judicial authorities of the host country. For this purpose the consular staff should be increased in the countries where there is an objective need to do so. Let me cite some definite examples. In the Czech Republic in 2002 there were only three consular officers to 515 of our imprisoned countrymen, while in Spain only two diplomats doubled as consular officers per 1,169 sentenced Ukrainians. As a result of accidents, crimes or other reasons the death toll is rising among Ukrainian migrant workers. According to the information of Ukrainian consular posts abroad, 2,424 Ukrainians died in 69 countries during the past two and a half years. The largest number of deaths occurred in Germany, Portugal, Poland, Italy and Russia. Quite a few problems arise when it comes to informing the relatives about the death of a Ukrainian citizen abroad. In some countries there is a time limit for making a decision on what should be done with the corpse. If by that time relatives fail to claim the corpse, it is cremated, buried or transferred to a medical institution for research. There have been cases when internal organs of deceased Ukrainian citizens were used for donor purposes. One example in point is an appeal to the Commissioner by Halyna Babiy of Khmelnytsky, in which she informed that doctors of an Israeli hospital removed the heart of her deceased husband without the consent of his relatives. This case is currently under the investigation of the Attorney General of Ukraine. In most cases, the relatives lack sufficient means to cover the expenses for transporting the remains of the deceased. In Italy, Portugal or Spain, for example, the cost is not less than ˆ 3,000. More often than not it is impossible to raise such an amount immediately. There have been cases when the burial of deceased Ukrainians has been delayed for over half a year while their families were strenuously trying to find the required funds. For these reasons relatives are compelled to have the deceased buried on the territory of a foreign country. Throughout the past three years the remains of only every second deceased Ukrainian were transferred to Ukraine, while the rest were buried in the host countries. The financial support to relatives of the deceased by Ukrainian diplomatic missions abroad is crucial in such cases. During the past two years over US $500,000 were allocated to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for these purposes. Yet, as a rule, diplomatic missions cover such costs in exclusive cases. opinions and Recommendations On the basis of a comprehensive study and its results set forth in the Special Report, the Commissioner deems it necessary to express a number of opinions and proposals. As an integral part of observance of human rights and freedoms in Ukraine, the problem of observance and protection of the rights and freedoms of Ukrainian citizens abroad is increasingly attracting attention of the Ukrainian society and calls for the pursuance of a purpose-minded state policy in this area. Among the growing number of Ukrainian citizens who annually have the opportunity to travel abroad for various reasons, the vast majority are Ukrainian migrant workers, illegal workers included, who seek employment outside the country. The increasing dimensions of such a migration during the past few years has become exceptionally topical and acute, thereby vitally affecting the socioeconomic situation in the state in general and in the regions in particular. The analysis by the Commissioner for Human Rights of the reasons influencing migration processes worldwide and in Ukraine gives grounds to assert that migration of Ukrainian workers abroad will for a long time yet remain one of the determining factors of the country’s public and economic life, directly affecting the status of observance of the civic, economic, social and cultural rights of Ukrainian citizens. Consequently, the processes of migration for employment abroad require profound study and understanding, above all by bodies of state authority and local self-government, as well the design of a corresponding government policy regulating the migration processes and providing more effectual protection to Ukrainian citizens traveling abroad as migrant workers. The Commissioner’s analysis of operative national legislation, of a large body of statistical and other information, the opinions of experts as well as the practices of bodies of state authority and local self-government proved that there are serious problems in this area. The absence of a concept on national migration policy and a single government agency responsible for the design and implementation of such a policy denies the state control over this area. In consequence, migration for employment abroad is mostly sporadic or surrendered to the complete control of private agencies that bear no responsibility for their clients. Also inadequate are the mechanisms of government protection of Ukrainian migrant workers abroad. An effective system is lacking for collecting, processing and analyzing statistical and other information on migration issues. In the opinion of the Commissioner for Human Rights, one of the important elements of such a concept is to align the government’s immigration policy concerned with control over the entry and stay of aliens in the country with its emigration policy, specifically the processes of migration of Ukrainian citizens for employment abroad. Taking into consideration the aforesaid, the Commissioner for Human Rights proposes that: The Parliament of Ukraine ■ ratify the European Convention on the Legal Status of Migrant Workers 1977; ■ ratify the ILO Recruitment and Placement of Seafarers Convention No.179, 1996; ■ ratify the UN Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime 2000 and its protocols to prevent, suppress and punish trafficking in persons and against the smuggling of migrants; ■ expedite the consideration of the draft law On Enterprises Acting as Intermediaries for the Employment of Citizens Abroad registered with the Parliament on December 10, 2002; ■ consider and adopt the Law On the Concept of Ukraine’s Migration Policy. The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine ■ ensure implementation of the Comprehensive Program of the Strategy of Poverty Reduction, as approved by Presidential Edict of August 15, 2002, No.637/2001, in order to set up an effective system for the social protection of the population, reduction of the dimensions of poverty and elimination of its gravest manifestations; ■ develop a concept of Ukraine’s migration policy that would comprehensively combine its immigration and emigration components and submit to Parliament the draft law On the Concept of Ukraine’s Migration Policy; ■ identify a single agency responsible for the development and implementation of the government’s migration policy, clearly delimiting the competence of the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Internal Affairs, the State Committee for Nationalities and Migration, and the State Committee for Guarding the State Border; ■ develop an effective system for collecting, processing and analyzing statistical or other data relating to the migration for employment abroad to be subsequently used during the implementation of the state migration policy; ■ continue improving the national legal framework governing transnational migration for employment and social protection of migrant workers; ■ expedite the ratification of the European Convention on the Legal Status of Migrant Workers 1977 and submit it to Parliament for consideration; ■ submit to Parliament for ratification the ILO Recruitment and Placement of Seafarers Convention No. 179, 1996; ■ consider the issue of Ukraine’s accession to the ILO Convention concerning Migration for Employment No.97 (1949) and the ILO Convention concerning Migrations in Abusive Conditions and the Promotion of Equality of Opportunity and Treatment of Migrant Workers No.143 (1975) and forward a motion to have them ratified by the Ukrainian Parliament; ■ prepare proposals to the Ukrainian Parliament for the ratification of the UN Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime 2000 and its additional protocols to prevent, suppress and punish trafficking in persons and against the smuggling of migrants; ■ finalize ratification of the treaty on medical insurance of migrant workers between the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine and the Government of the Republic of Poland and initiate the conclusion of such treaties with other countries; ■ provide in the State Budget targeted funds to ensure legal protection of Ukrainian citizens deprived of liberty on the territory of foreign states; ■ design a set of measures for extensively explaining to Ukrainian citizens their rights and freedoms during their stay and employment abroad as well as the specifics of legislation of the receiving countries, including the provisions of respective intergovernmental and multilateral treaties. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine ■ enhance the personnel of Ukrainian diplomatic missions and consular posts in the countries with the largest number of Ukrainian migrant workers, and also extend the practice of staffing the consular posts with officers who have a proper legal education; ■ among the personnel of diplomatic missions in the countries receiving Ukrainian migrant workers identify employees who would be responsible for monitoring the labor market of the host countries and explain and promote the exercise by Ukrainian migrant workers of their rights in full; ■ extend the practice of consular officers participating in court hearings, especially in cases where there is evidence of prejudiced attitudes to and discrimination against Ukrainian citizens; ■ ensure prompt and systemic notification of relatives of Ukrainian citizens abroad about facts of their detention (arrest) as well as the progress of investigation of criminal charges against them and their judicial review, and set out clearly defined procedures for the provision of such information; ■ strengthen control over and responses to irregular investigation of cases of death of Ukrainian citizens abroad; ■ ensure timely execution of documents related to the death of Ukrainian citizens abroad in order to protect the rights and interests of their relatives in Ukraine; ■ continue the practice of providing government assistance for transporting the bodies of Ukrainians who died abroad when their families and relatives cannot cover such costs. To this end, provide corresponding expenditures in the State Budget and set out the procedure for providing such assistance; ■ generalize international practice in government policy of migration for employment from the sending countries to the receiving countries; ■ facilitate self-organization of migrant workers in the host countries and use the opportunities of the Ukrainian Diaspora for enhancing the effectiveness of protection of the migrant workers’ rights and freedoms; ■ respond without delay to facts of abuse by foreign lawyers in the discharge of their duties of providing legal assistance in civil and criminal cases, and set up a network of legal firms specializing in the protection of the rights of aliens for defending the interests of Ukrainian citizens; ■ formulate principles of interaction and all-round support of Ukrainian and foreign lawyers and law firms that can ensure real and effective protection of the rights and interests of Ukrainian citizens abroad; ■ speed up the process of concluding treaties on employment and social protection jointly with the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy of Ukraine, above all with those countries that have the largest number of Ukrainian migrant workers, in particular with Spain, Italy and Greece. Concurrently, draft treaties on reciprocal recognition of professional education to retain and upgrade the qualification of national specialist during their temporary stay abroad. The Ministry of Labor and Social Policy of Ukraine ■ strengthen control over compliance with operative Ukrainian legislation and conditions of licensing of business entities involved in recruiting Ukrainian citizens for employment abroad; ■ constantly monitor the execution of operative bilateral and multilateral treaties on employment in order to raise their effectiveness; ■ develop mechanisms for recording cash transfers of Ukrainian migrant workers within the structure of incomes of families in order to plan and ensure their subsistence minimum; ■ expedite the conclusion of bilateral treaties on social security, specifically pension provision, of Ukrainian citizens who travel abroad, above all to Canada, Germany, USA, and Israel; ■ expand the powers of regional government agencies during the drafting and conclusion of foreign economic agreements (contracts) with foreign business entities for employment of Ukrainian citizens; ■ jointly with the State Committee for Tourism strengthen control over tourist firms that under the guise of tourist services illegally recruit Ukrainian citizens for work abroad The Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine ■ submit justified proposals to the Cabinet of Ministers for increasing funds to develop science and ensure necessary conditions of work for the country’s scientists and scientific institutions in order to prevent the outflow of highly qualified scientific personnel abroad; ■ constantly monitor emigration of Ukrainian scientists and, proceeding from the results, submit corresponding recommendations to the Cabinet of Ministers; ■ draft and submit to the Cabinet of Ministers for consideration long-term comprehensives measures on international cooperation in science as well as the participation of Ukrainian scientists in international programs in order to employ more effectively Ukraine’s scientific potential; ■ study the issue of host countries compensating the Ukrainian state for the training of scientists who emigrated for permanent residence. The National Bank of Ukraine Proceeding from a regulatory framework, devise a simplified system for Ukrainian migrant workers abroad remitting money to our citizens, providing for favorable terms of payment for the banks’ remittance services. The Office of the Attorney General of Ukraine Speed up the process of concluding bilateral treaties – first of all with Russia, Belarus and Moldova – on the transfer of convicts to serve out their sentences in Ukraine. The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Broaden international cooperation of Ukrainian law enforcement bodies with similar foreign agencies to strengthen effectiveness of combating organized and transnational crime directed against Ukrainian migrant workers. To this end, increase the number of Ministry of Internal Affairs personnel within Ukrainian diplomatic missions abroad. Regional State Administrations and Oblast Radas At the local level systematically collect and analyze information pertaining to migration processes and at the regional level take appropriate measures to deal with the problems related to migration for employment The Commissioner believes that owing to the high poverty rates of Ukraine’s population, the allocation of state funds for transporting Ukrainian citizens who died abroad is an important factor of protecting the rights of our countrymen, and such a practice of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs should be continued in the future. To this end, it is necessary to provide annually for corresponding expenditures in the State Budget of Ukraine. As an integral part of observance of human rights and freedoms in Ukraine, the problem of observance and protection of the rights and freedoms of Ukrainian citizens abroad is increasingly attracting attention of the Ukrainian society and calls for the pursuance of a purpose-minded state policy in this area. The analysis by the Commissioner for Human Rights of the reasons influencing migration processes worldwide and in Ukraine gives grounds to assert that the migration of Ukrainian workers abroad will for a long time yet remain one of the determining factors of the country’s public and economic life, directly affecting the status of observance of the civic, economic, social and cultural rights of Ukrainian citizens. Consequently, the processes of migration for employment abroad require profound study and understanding, above all by bodies of state authority and local self-government, as well the design of a corresponding government policy regulating the migration for employment processes and providing more effectual protection to Ukrainian citizens traveling abroad as migrant workers. The Commissioner’s analysis of operative national legislation, of a large body of statistical and other information, the opinions of experts as well as the practices of bodies of state authority and local self-government proved that there are serious problems in this area. The absence of a concept on national migration policy and a single government agency responsible for the design and implementation of such a policy denies the state control over this area. In consequence, migration for employment is mostly sporadic or surrendered to the complete control of private agencies that bear no responsibility for their clients. Also inadequate are the mechanisms of government protection of Ukrainian migrant workers abroad. An effective system is lacking for collecting, processing and analyzing statistical and other information on migration issues. Although some progress has been made in this area by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Labor and Social Policy, and the State Committee for Guarding the State Border, the situation in the migration processes from Ukraine remains critical and can be regarded as a national security issue which, accordingly, requires that the state promptly take additional comprehensive measures. In conclusion, I would like to thank everyone who supported the Commissioner in accomplishing the monitoring presented to the members of Parliament and express the hope that the opinions and proposals offered in the speech by the Commissioner will further encourage the process. Resolution* In accordance with the Law of Ukraine On the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights (No. 776/97-BP), part 3, Article 18, after the hearing of the Special Report On the Status of Observance and Protection of the Rights of Ukrainian Citizens Abroad presented by the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, Nina Karpachova, and taking note of the growing dimensions of the migration of Ukrainian citizens for employment abroad during the past few years, which negatively affect the socioeconomic situation in the country, the Ukrainian Parliament has resolved to: 1. Take into account the Special Report On the Status of Observance and Protection of the Rights of Ukrainian Citizens Abroad presented by the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, Nina Karpachova. 2. The parliamentary committees for human rights, national minorities and inter-ethnic relations as well as other committees, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, respective ministries and central agencies of Ukraine, the National Academy of Sciences, the National Bank of Ukraine, the Attorney General’s Office of Ukraine, the Council of Ministers of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, and the state administrations in the oblasts are to review the proposals of the Commissioner for Human Rights on bringing Ukrainian legislation into conformity with international standards in order to secure the rights of Ukrainian citizens abroad and to improve law enforcement practices. 3. Publish the Special Report of the Commissioner for Human Rights On the Status of Observance and Protection of the Rights of Ukrainian Citizens Abroad in the newspaper Holos Ukrainy (Voice of Ukraine).
Chairman of the Kyiv, No.714-IV *281 MPs by the roll call vote adopted the draft of the Resolution. |
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