Some Kyrgyz select Afghanistan as a labor migration destination

Daniel Sershen: 1/03/08

The Republican Council of Veterans, located on Gogol Street in the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek, is dedicated to assisting those who fought in Soviet conflicts. Most of its members – now middle-aged – served during the 1979-89 war in Afghanistan.

A few doors down, 29-year-old Talgat Chotkarayev works in a hair salon. He too is a veteran of Afghanistan – serving not as a soldier, but as a barber and pizza chef for coalition forces now battling radical Islamic insurgents.

Kyrgyzstan's persistent poverty has driven many to seek work abroad; estimates vary, but they hover around 10 percent of the country's 5 million population. The vast majority of labor migrants tend to head north to the booming economies of Russia and Kazakhstan. But a small number have turned instead to their war-torn southern neighbor, drawn by the promise of higher wages.

"I could have gone to Russia or Kazakhstan, but how much does a barber make there?" Chotkarayev asked. He currently earns about 15,000 som (approximately 430 dollars) per month in Bishkek, a good living by Kyrgyz standards. But while seeking work in 2004, friends told him he could make three times that much in Afghanistan. "I thought for a long time. I was afraid – there's a war there, after all," he said.

US forces employ approximately 29,000 private contractors in Afghanistan, Defense Department officials have said. Despite headline-grabbing reports of misdeeds by independent security providers in Iraq and Afghanistan, most contractors provide mundane support services that form the backbone of US operations on the ground. Many of the workers in Afghanistan are third country nationals – TCNs, in military lingo – from South Asian countries such as India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.

The number of Central Asian TCNs appears to be relatively small – perhaps several hundred, according to Kyrgyz who have been there. Nurlan Kubenov, chief of external migration at the Kyrgyz State Committee on Migration and Employment, said Kyrgyzstan had no data on the subject. "We focus more on migration to Russia [and] Kazakhstan. The fact that people are going to Afghanistan, that's something new for us," he said.

Nurlan Torobekov, the chairman of the Republican Council of Veterans, acknowledged the irony that he had covered the Soviet retreat from Afghanistan two decades ago only to see his compatriots return there now to work. But the world had changed, he acknowledged: the triumph of market economic forces was inducing Kyrgyz to seek opportunities where they were available.

"Where there's a chance to make some money, that's where they are. Not to defend someone's interests in a political sense, but to feed their family," Torobekov said.

Given his own gloomy employment prospects, Chotkarayev eventually took the plunge. He signed on as a barber in Kandahar with a Korean contractor, later working in Herat for an Italian firm. Putting in six 12-hour days a week for half-year stints, he earned over 1,000 dollars per month, mostly in tips. Two later spells, as a pizza chef in Kabul and at the US's Bagram airbase, were less profitable; he brought home a little more than half that amount.

Elvira Aiylchiyeva, 23, also had some doubts when she saw an ad seeking English-speaking university graduates to work at Bagram. While security concerned her, she mostly wondered what it would be like to work on an isolated airbase surrounded by soldiers.

After friends who had already been there convinced her to apply, Aiylchiyeva realized that Bagram more closely resembled a small city, complete with movie theaters, gyms, and stores. She sold mobile phones in a retail shop for nearly a year, working eight-hour days with one day off per week and earning 500 to 1,000 dollars a month.

"Since my company was an American company, I had better conditions than the other Kyrgyz," Aiylchiyeva said.

Joseph Stewart, CEO of iFONE, the company that employed Aiylchiyeva, needed a handful of English speakers to help provide mobile phone service at US bases in Kandahar and Bagram. "Certainly hiring a third country national cost a lot less than hiring an American," he said, noting that he was initially attracted to Kyrgyzstan by the presence of an American university. He continued hiring Kyrgyz because they had "a good work ethic and [were] extremely honest," adding that the presence of a coalition airbase outside Bishkek also made logistics easier.

Conditions for Central Asian workers appear to vary widely. While Aiylchiyeva had a relatively light workload, Chotkarayev said his time as a pizza chef was truly grueling. "Each day we worked 13, 14, 15 hours, and without days off. I worked six months without a day off," he said. The constant standing had taken a toll on his health, leading to leg and back pain.

An October 3 article published in the local Kyrgyz newspaper Delo No. alleged that some Kyrgyz were subject to much worse treatment. Based on interviews with two anonymous Kyrgyz citizens who had worked at a Bagram shop run by the US military, the report said that TCNs were treated as people of "a third sort," lower than both Americans and Afghans. After enduring months of discrimination, the men said, they were unfairly accused of theft and sent home immediately. The article concluded that they were falsely accused to avoid implicating an American manager.

The two men worked for a Bishkek-based firm that held a contract with AAFES, the branch of the US military that sells products and services to members of the armed forces. Delo No. identified the company only by the letter Z, but EurasiaNet identified a local firm named Zalzar that held a similar contract with AAFES.

A Zalzar representative, Leila Seyitbek, and a lawyer hired by the firm, Tatiana Ivaschenko, said they had not read the October 3 article and could not confirm whether it referred to Zalzar. However, Ivaschenko said, "there have been no complaints" of unfair treatment from anyone the firm sent to Afghanistan.

Seyitbek added that Kyrgyz employed by Zalzar "work in very good conditions" and receive visa support as well as health and life insurance via the firm. The salaries paid by Zalzar to workers in Afghanistan – averaging around 800 dollars per month – had allowed many of them to buy cars, open businesses, or finance weddings upon returning home, she said.

Chotkarayev and Aiylchiyeva said they had not met with any discrimination from their employers, although they had observed isolated cases where other contractors mistreated TCNs. Both said they would go back, for the right price. "They [make] use of our strength, because we're the cheapest labor force," Chotkarayev said. "But we agree, right, because the money is good."

Editor's Note: Daniel Sershen is a freelance writer based in Central Asia.

Posted January 3, 2008 © Eurasianet