Despite its rich energy resources, from which it receives billions of dollars in exports, Turkmenistan continues to suffer from a serious internal economic crisis. And with the difficulties in emigrating to other countries, thousands of people from the villages flock to the capital in search of work. The police harass the “vagrants.”
Ashgabat () – Many Turkmen living in the outlying regions of Velayati are flocking to the capital, Ashgabat, as internal labour migrants, increasingly in recent times due to the difficulties in travelling abroad, in search of work in municipal services and in apartment blocks, in extremely difficult conditions, Radio Azatlyk reports. Often, several families are forced to share small single rooms in hostels and makeshift shelters.
The shelters are organised by the capital’s administration, and two to three families, including parents and children, are crammed into one room. Those who get a place in these facilities can work as street sweepers or cleaners in various buildings, while to find a room in private buildings you have to pay at least 1,000 manat (more than 250 euros). In the shelter on Sabyr Ataev Street there are more than 100 people from 30 families in about ten rooms, some of whom try to get there alone, leaving their families at home.
The hostel has only one toilet, and there is a long queue in front of it all night long, men, women and children. In other hostels there are at most two toilets on each floor, but often only one works, and the others are “closed for renovations.” There are rather unpleasant smells throughout the building, and requests for intervention from the administration are often not answered.
Despite its wealth of energy resources, which earn it billions of dollars in exports, Turkmenistan is still experiencing a severe internal economic crisis. Unemployment shows no signs of abating and Turkmen citizens are no longer sure where to turn for a solution. Outside the capital, internal migrants from all countries are flocking to the big cities, seeking construction work, custodial work and unskilled services of all kinds.
When large public celebrations are being prepared, which are quite common in these parts to celebrate the magnificence of power and the greatness of the patriotic spirit, internal migrants are sent en masse back home to “strengthen security measures” in Ashgabat and other cities, in the form of “unpaid leave.” Those who do not return in time are arrested for “violating public order” and forced to pay heavy fines. On such occasions, policemen constantly patrol the streets, checking the papers of all passers-by and escorting “strangers” to train or bus stops.
On holidays only “well-dressed people” who display feelings of “joy and happiness for life” are allowed to go out, and those who walk around in tattered and torn clothes are stopped and sent as far away as possible. Construction work on new hospitals, schools and other large buildings is also stopped, to avoid dirty bricklayers and sweaty porters. The worst vagrants, who sleep on the street in makeshift clothing, are sent as “free labour” to provincial farms.
The homeless are often a category derived from internal migrants, and as they have no specific residence, they are entirely at the mercy of the arbitrary actions of the police and the administrations. Often, it is enough to wear a torn dress in the street to be identified as a vagrant, even if one claims to have a job, and attempts are made to send the healthiest ones who can be arrested to forced labour. Among those who end up in the hands of the police are often market porters, among the dirtiest on the outside and the least protected by employers.
Many emigrants bring their wives and children not so much to feed and care for them, but to have someone to defend them from the arbitrariness of power, the only real law in Turkmenistan.
Photo: Flickr / Stefan Krasowski
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