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JRS Ukraine
Political Developments
Since its first refugee law was passed in 1993, Ukraine
has granted status to 5,459 claimants. In 2008, 2,277 of
these continued to live in Ukraine while 978 became
citizens. However, these figures were very small and did
not accurately represent the picture of migration in and
through Ukraine - a further analysis of these minimal
statistics tell us more.
Of these 5,459 refugees, 5,000 were granted that status
before 2002, when the state began to institute standard
international procedures, setting up offices for the
proper processing of claimants. Ironically, with the
sustained help of the European Union, as the various
offices in Ukraine have become more defined, better
staffed, and accountable, the number of successful
claimants has dramatically diminished. |
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From 2002 to 2007 approximately
400 claimants were granted refugee status. During the same
period, particularly following the expansion of the European
Union in 2004, the number of migrants in the country
dramatically and visibly increased, with all major cities
inhabited by significant minorities. Kharkiv had a major
Vietnamese community, while the Chinese flocked to Donetsk.
Central Africans were regularly seen in Kyiv and Odessa; the
Somalis and Sudanese have created a community in Vinnitsa. There
were Chechnyans, Georgians, Afghans, Iraqis, Indians,
Palestinians, and Russians to be found ubiquitously. They were
either in the system applying for status or, more commonly,
working illegally under police radar.
To return to the official statistics, of those granted status
1,171 were from Afghanistan, 652 from former Soviet republics,
239 from Africa, with representations from Iraq, Pakistan,
Vietnam, Korea, China, and elsewhere.
The biggest variable in Ukraine lay in the difference between
being apprehended or not, given that Ukraine has no eastern
border control. Movement of people and contraband along the
frontier with Russia is virtually without supervision. The
Ministry of Internal Affairs estimated that 20,000 illegal
migrants were dealt with officially in the last five years.
There was no even vague estimate on the numbers that passed
through without detection. More troubling still were the stories
of corruption on the western border where migrants pay the
guards for the passage - corruption that exists on both sides of
the border.
Parallel to the development of procedures and the establishing
of regional offices for the processing of refugee applications,
the EU helped Ukraine to renovate two former army barracks as
detention centres for irregular migrants. This created two such
centres in Ukraine, with a capacity of 430 irregular migrants,
who, for the most part, awaited deportation. As these centres
are new, procedures are in the process of being established.
Access to them was made available to JRS and to other agencies.
Although the above statistics are current and official, there
are other statistics that suggest much more to the general story
of migration in Ukraine. The department of Internal Affairs, for
example, estimated that in 2007 there were 4 million foreigners
living in Ukraine. This figure included migrants of all kinds:
business, students, military, legal and irregular migrants.
Furthermore, it is known that the black market is highly active
in Ukraine, most notably in the border areas with Moldova and
Slovakia. Newspapers sometimes carried stories reporting twenty
to forty irregular migrants being apprehended at the border or
somewhere within the country. Statistics from 2005 said that up
to 150,000 women were trafficked each year from former Soviet
republics.
The emigration of Ukrainian citizens, legal and illegal, is
thought to have reached as much as 7 million in the first 15
years following independence in 1991. These statistics, while
quite broad, at the very least paint a more complicated picture
than the official state statistics allow. This is one of the
main problems in post-Soviet countries: research and reliable
information.
JRS Activities
JRS-Ukraine opened its centre on 1 October 2008. Currently, it
houses refugees from the war in Abkhazia (Georgia), and from the
war in Iraq. It counts among its close collaborators: UNHCR,
ERSO, ECRE, Caritas Ukraine, Caritas Austria, NEEKA, and other
non-governmental organizations. The culture of NGOs is in its
earliest stages in Ukraine, so most of our work in this regard
lies in building networks and links for future collaboration.
We also can count on candour and good working relationships with
the relevant organs of state: Migration Service, Border Patrol,
and police, all of whom have distinct responsibilities with the
migrant population. JRS Ukraine has added to its direct work
with refugee claimants, researching the statistics behind the
individual stories.
Contact Details
Fr David Nazar SJ, Country Director
vul. Luteranska, 6B/ 56 - 01001 Kyiv, Ukraine
Tel: +38 044 278 2978
ukraine(a)jrs.net
To send an email, just replace the (a) with @. |
