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The State Duma is discussing the need for a Russian language test for migrants
Despite the federal government's satisfaction with the results of the new "market" and migration policies , Russian legislators seem to believe that the measures taken are still insufficient to effectively screen out guest workers . Some State Duma deputies believe that a document confirming knowledge of the Russian language should be a mandatory condition when entering the country to work. On Thursday, May 10, the draft corresponding amendments to the federal law “On the legal status of foreign citizens in the Russian Federation” will be submitted to the State Duma.As Alexey Krutov, one of the initiators of the introduction of “language screening” for guest workers, deputy from the A Just Russia - Motherland faction, told Vremya Novostey, it is proposed to expand the list of notification documents for foreigners arriving in Russia to work for a period of more than 90 days. Certificates confirming the absence of infectious diseases, drug addiction, and HIV infection will need to be accompanied by a document confirming the migrant’s knowledge of the Russian language. According to Mr. Krutov, the Russian Ministry of Education and Science has a list of educational institutions that have the right to official state testing of language proficiency. These institutions, according to the developers of the amendments, can issue appropriate certificates that will differentiate foreign labor based on linguistic abilities. “For unskilled workers, 300-500 lexical units will be enough to communicate at the everyday level and have a superficial knowledge of technical terms,” says Mr. Krutov. “In production, in a Russian-speaking team, it will be possible to work with a reserve of 500 to 1000 lexical units.”
Today, according to his faction colleague Nikolai Leonov, only 40-45% of the official number of foreign workers in Russia know Russian, and then only at the everyday level. The proposed selection, according to the deputies, will not only allow the state to “identify more literate and qualified labor resources for the country,” but will also help migrants with a high level of education find a decent job in Russia, and “not to take revenge with a street diploma.” In addition, representatives of A Just Russia are confident that knowledge of the Russian language will contribute to a more painless integration of foreigners into the local environment and will neutralize xenophobic sentiments in society.
The authors of the bill also hope that employers themselves will improve the level of linguistic knowledge of their foreign employees. However, deputies do not exclude the possibility of financial participation of the state or regional administrations in language training. “If the state is directly interested in educated specialists from abroad, then it will also participate in their training; for example, the Moscow mayor’s office, which hires a large amount of cheap labor, will have to pay for Russian language courses,” Mr. Leonov believes.
But at the initial stage of developing the amendments, according to him, it would be inappropriate to “hang” teaching Russian to migrants on the state budget, since this would immediately frighten off the parliamentary majority of United Russia members. Apparently, the fears of the minority were not in vain, since although the chairman of the Committee on Constitutional Legislation and State Building of the State Duma, United Russia member Vladimir Pligin, generally supported the idea of introducing a “language barrier” for migrants, he, however, was primarily interested in the sources of funding for the project.
However, according to Alexey Krutov, he “does not hold onto the authorship of this amendment” and, if United Russia offers a better option, he will easily support it. True, for this, according to deputies of the “A Just Russia - Motherland” faction, it is necessary that the federal government become interested in the initiative. It is likely that the Federal Migration Service will provide protection here. As the department’s press secretary, Konstantin Poltoranin, told Vremya Novostei, the FMS really considers guest workers’ ignorance of the Russian language to be a problem and is already preparing their proposals to solve it. This is especially true, he said, of the younger generation of foreign workers from the former Soviet republics.
However, human rights activists are confident that the deputies are only inventing a new reason to restrict the entry of foreigners into the country, “exploiting on the feelings of hostility of the indigenous population towards everything foreign.” According to Elena Burtchina, deputy chairman of the Civic Assistance Committee for Refugees, in a country where not all regions speak Russian, “it is a shame to introduce such prohibitive measures.” “If even for those who have forever decided to connect their lives with Russia, in some cases exceptions are made to the requirement of mandatory knowledge of the Russian language, such as for older people, then why do those who come here for three months need to learn it,” she was indignant human rights activist Ms. Burtchina believes that with such “artificial” methods the Russian authorities will not only not force foreigners to learn Russian, but, on the contrary, will discourage all respect for it.