The partner of Open Asia Online, Asia-Plus, in its special project Migrant, says that foreign citizens in Tajikistan cannot buy real estate, adopt children, and even cannot marry locals. And that’s not all. What problems do visitors encounter in this republic yet? Ministry of Justice of Tajikistan told reporters that the number of marriages has been reducedcitizens of the republic with foreigners. The ministry associates this trend with special rules by which marriages are concluded in this country. The fact is that according to the law, a visitor (a woman or a man - it doesn’t matter) can sign with a citizen of the country only on condition that he has lived in Tajikistan for at least a year, signs a marriage contract and buys real estate for his husband or wife who has Tajik passport. The government attributes these amendments to concern for the welfare of its citizens. In fact, it goes sideways to the citizens of Tajikistan.
- My husband did not want to renew my visa because he did not buy me an apartment. I tried to explain that we already had a daughter - a teenager, when we got married, this law was still not close, but no one listened to me. They wanted to “protect me from my own husband,” a resident of Dushanbe, the wife of a US citizen, told us last summer.
The woman explained that she wanted to be closer to her relatives, she came to her homeland in the hope of living here for at least some time, but the system does not provide such an opportunity. Tajik men have their own complaints about these amendments.
- That is, I, a citizen of Tajikistan, want to marry a Russian girl, and she must live here for a year, register and buy me an apartment? And only then, I, as a “true” oriental man, can I marry her? It seems that we are playing the role of gigolos here, ”says Navruz Odinaev, a lawyer at Himoya.
He explains: according to the law “On the Legal Status of Foreign Citizens and Stateless Persons of the Republic of Tatarstan”, visitors cannot purchase real estate in Tajikistan and register it in their name. The exception is only the housing that was inherited by a foreign citizen.
Therefore, if a foreign citizen has the need and opportunity to buy an apartment in our country, in any case he will be able to arrange it only for a citizen of Tajikistan.
“From my own experience, I can say that foreigners conclude a marriage contract, and if they purchase housing, I draw it up in the name of their spouse or spouse,” Odinaev says.
There is still complexity: according to the decree of the Government of Tajikistan of January 25, 2020 to obtain a visa, a foreign spouse or spouse of a country's citizens may. But, unfortunately, in practice, even with a marriage certificate, this is not easy.
So do not get to anyone!
But, perhaps, the difficulties that marriage brings with citizens of Tajikistan are not all, there are other serious barriers. For example, the infamous article 127 of the Family Code of Tajikistan, which prohibits foreign citizens from adopting Tajik children.
Here it is worth recalling the story of two years ago, when the authorities of the republic took the adopted child from a Muscovite after they established that the mother of the baby is a citizen of Tajikistan.
The child was born in Moscow, his mother refused him, and adopted a citizen of Uzbekistan - Khilola Egorova. However, later it was decided to return the baby to the orphanage in Tajikistan, because foreigners can not adopt Tajik citizens. At the time of the return of the child, he already had Russian citizenship, his name was Mikhail Egorov, but nothing helped.
Another story happened 12 years ago when a young Dushanbe, Dina Kuptsova, after her mother’s death, could not be adopted by her aunt, Elena Kechen, a German citizen.
According to Navruz Odinayev, Tajikistan ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1993. Article 21 of the Convention permits adoption by citizens of other states, if this is in the interest of the child.
However, ratification of this Convention did not prevent the parliament of the republic from adopting amendments to the Family Code in April 2006, which prohibited the adoption of Tajik orphans by foreigners. At the session, it was noted that this is not contrary to international law, as the Convention is supposedly of a recommendatory nature.
Tajik citizenship - select only
For several years, Asia-Plus tried to obtain information on how many foreign citizens received Tajik citizenship during the years of independence or at least recently, but all attempts were unsuccessful. The Foreign Ministry explained that they are only engaged in collecting documents, and applications are considered by the special commission on citizenship under the President of Tajikistan. It was not possible to contact this editorial board. To obtain information on the number of new citizens of Tajikistan did not work in the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
Other countries of the post-Soviet space provide such information and are even proud of it. For example, over the past five years, more than 24 thousand people have received Kyrgyz citizenship, of which almost 20 thousand are ethnic Kyrgyz. For five years (from 2012 to 2017), Russia issued about 300 thousand passports for visitors, Georgian citizenship, in which almost 16 thousand foreigners received a visa-free regime with the EU countries for two years (2016-2018).
There are no such data for Tajikistan.
According to the constitutional law “On Citizenship of the Republic of Tatarstan”, in order to receive it, a foreigner must legally live in the country continuously for five years and during this time learn the state language.
Moreover, circumstances facilitating the process are: adoption of a child who is a citizen of Tajikistan, marriage to a citizen of the republic, as well as the presence of high achievements in the field of science and culture or merit to the people.
Although high merit may not help. For example, several years ago, Asia-Plus wrote about the Afghan poet Horuni Roun, who had been trying for 14 years to obtain the coveted Tajik passport.
"For merits in the glorification and promotion of Tajik literature," he was admitted to the Union of Writers of the Republic, composed songs for famous Tajik artists, officially married a citizen of Tajikistan. Two children were born in their marriage - also citizens of the country, but the poet never became one. As a result, he emigrated with his family to Canada.
“I have no information that someone once received a residence permit in Tajikistan and then citizenship,” said Navruz Odinaev, meanwhile.
In 2020, the Government of Tajikistan allocated 7.5 thousand quotas for visitors to work expensive and limited
. In addition, on the basis of a presidential decree, a certain number of foreign citizens who work on infrastructure and industrial projects as part of an interstate agreement are involved outside the quota.
But how can a foreigner get a job in Tajikistan?
First, an organization that wants to attract labor from outside receives a quota from the Ministry of Labor and Employment. Moreover, the company must justify that there are simply no such specialists in Tajikistan.
After receiving a quota, the company submits an application to the migration service. To do this, you will have to collect a number of documents and pay the state duty for the license of 770 somoni (about $ 82, - approx. OJSC).
Then the migration service collects a commission and checks the data. If everything is in order, the company receives a license to attract foreign labor for three years, and it will clearly state: how many specialists will come, from which countries and in which industry they will work.
If a visiting employee needs a Tajik visa, then the company will not manage to obtain the mentioned license. Then she must submit documents to the Tajik Foreign Ministry, pay a state duty of $ 5 and wait for the documents to be considered. If the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is satisfied with the information provided, then a personal electronic account is opened for the applicant for a visa, and then a visa is issued: a single work visa costs $ 220, multiple visa costs $ 260. In addition, you need to pay a state fee of 110 somoni (about $ 12, - approx. OJSC).
But that is not all.
Next, a foreign citizen who came to Tajikistan on a quota and a work visa must obtain a work permit. This document is issued for one year and costs 3300 somoni (about $ 350, - approx. OJSC). Then a foreign citizen must register for himself before the end of his work visa. The annual cost is about 260 somoni (about $ 28, - approx. OJSC). Add up all the costs, it turns out that a foreign citizen needs to pay about $ 750 to work in Tajikistan.
Increased interest annoys.
All of these problems are not yet a complete list of difficulties that a visitor will have to face. For example, every year journalists write about another incident on the topic “Law enforcement officers extort money from foreigners”, and ordinary citizens are not far behind.
“A lot of friendly people, of course, but most often this increased interest in you begins to annoy after a few days,” admits Jack, who has been working in Tajikistan for the past two years.
- Another problem was our appearance with him (her husband, - ed.) In public places: if we walked along the street, I constantly caught the slanting eyes on me, heard some jokes, and all because of being a foreigner , and I'm Tajik, ”Munira, the wife of a US citizen, told us.
The fact that foreign citizens need to be more careful on the streets of Tajik cities is spoken in numerous forums in which foreigners discuss our country. Moreover, they do not indicate that we have a high crime rate, but namely the unlawful actions of police officers or ordinary citizens. You won’t even dismiss it, they say, criminals are everywhere: you can expect a dirty trick from ordinary people or from civil servants.
Authors: Liliya Gaysina, Mehranges Tursunzoda
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