"This Isn’t Slovakia"

KIEV, Ukraine -- In the bustle of the capital city’s largest outdoor market, merchants are hawking fake Adidas shoes, Rolexes, fur, and leather coats. The sellers are as eclectic as their goods; many come from Asia and Africa to mostly homogenous Ukraine.

Two Ukrainian women sell sunflower seeds at the increasingly diverse Troyeshchyna market.
Workers at the Troyeshchyna marketplace, located on the left bank of the Dnipro River, estimate that at least 50 percent of those renting the tiny booths are foreigners. Some came on student visas, others as political refugees. Some paid smugglers who told them they were destined for the European Union, only to discover they still had some distance to go.

Malik, a 28-year-old Pashtun from Pakistan, said he was among 10 people unloaded on the outskirts of Kyiv two years ago and told he was in Slovakia. Refusing to disclose any other details of his journey, Malik said he paid $5,000 to be smuggled into Europe. Today, he rents five booths at the market, has a Ukrainian wife who converted to Islam, and is legally registered to live in the country.

“For now, I’m content,” said Malik, who asked that his real name not be used, fearing retaliation from smugglers who duped him into thinking he was in an EU country. “Managing five booths keeps me busy, and I have a wife and newborn daughter to come home to.”

On Fridays, Malik prays at a nearby mosque with other compatriots who work at the market and watches Pakistani television broadcasts via satellite at a nearby café. On this day, there was a larger than normal crowd, he said. Malik was happy to escape the frigid temperature and sip a cup of hot tea inside the café, while he and other customers watched a breaking news event in Pakistan.

Troyeshchyna is a microcosm of migration in Ukraine. A country that forms a land bridge between two vast markets – Russia and the EU – is witnessing a rise in both legal and illegal migration. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Border Guard Service, more than 60,000 migrants were detained at Ukrainian borders between 2003 and 2006. Other figures maintain the actual figure is many times higher.

The World Bank has listed Ukraine as the fourth largest migrant-harboring country, with more than 150,000 migrants officially registered and countless others residing illegally. The International Organization for Migration in Kyiv says the number of migrants entering the country is rising annually, but statistics can be sketchy because of the nefarious nature of the illegal trade. Ukraine is also a lure for asylum-seekers from its authoritarian northern neighbor, Belarus.

TOUGHER CROSSING

The pressure on Ukraine’s borders grew as neighboring EU countries prepared to join the Schengen visa-free travel zone at the end of 2007. Ukraine shares borders with Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and Romania, and all but Romania are now part of the Schengen zone.

The 97-kilometer border with Slovakia sees much of the illegal traffic, because the thick forest and mountainous terrain make the area difficult to police.

Before Schengen, Ukrainian nationals had easier access to these countries, as did foreigners using the country as a transit to the West. Border issues were a topic on Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s recent visit to Brussels.

IOM says Ukraine’s proximity to the EU has “created new management challenges for Ukraine’s already strained system,” including the country’s health care and social services, as immigrants and asylum-seekers arrive hoping for quick transit to an EU country.

But migration is a two-way street in Ukraine. While the country has been a destination for Asians and Africans as well as citizens of other members of the Commonwealth of Independent States like Armenia and Georgia, there has also been a steady march west. The government puts the number of Ukrainian nationals living outside the country at 2.5 million. More than 1 million of them are in Russia.

Driven by economic hardship at home and the lure of higher wages, Ukrainian workers have sought jobs in Western Europe and more economically vibrant nations that joined the EU in 2004. More than 300,000 Ukrainians live in Poland, and 176,000 live in the Czech Republic.

There is also a darker side of this outflow – the IOM identifies Ukraine as a major point of origin for human trafficking in prostitution and domestic servitude.

Emigration from Ukraine has been a major concern for the EU. Slovak border police recorded 2,308 illegal crossings from Ukraine in 2006, nearly 10 times the number of illegal crossings from Slovakia’s four other bordering countries combined. The EU and national governments spent millions of euros on high-tech border crossings and detection equipment in preparation for the extension of the Schengen area.

NOT ALWAYS PARADISE

But for the newcomers to Ukraine, language barriers and cultural differences can make the integration process difficult from the start in this huge country of 47.5 million, where more than three in four people are ethnic Ukrainian and the rest are mostly Russian. Most of the migrants interviewed at Troyeshchyna didn’t speak either Russian or Ukrainian beyond numbers and a few simple words to describe apparel and footwear.

Evelyn Chong, a young girl from the Hunan Province of China, said she was visiting her brother, a worker at Troyeshchyna. She held a copy of a Chinese-language newspaper, one of two in Kyiv. Chong had only been in Ukraine for two months on a tourist visa. She declined to offer more than cryptic suggestions about her long-term plans. Chong preferred to answer questions about the women’s shoes she was selling.

Chinese comprised the fourth largest group of migrants detained by border police in 2003-2006.

The ethnic communities represented at Troyeshchyna have formed informal social support networks in the vicinity of the market. “Every Friday I visit a small Muslim temple not far from here,” said Barry Abdoul Karim of the West African nation of Guinea, pointing over his shoulder to emphasize the proximity of the makeshift mosque.

Karim is here on a student visa and is taking mandatory preparatory courses in Ukrainian language prior to applying for entry to Shevchenko University where he plans to study art. “I was an artist back home, but times were tough,” he explained. “A Ukrainian businessman who liked my work arranged a student visa for me.” Karim said Africans sharing a common language regularly gather for social picnics on weekends.

Some at the market declined to speak. A Nigerian who had been living in Ukraine for more 10 years refused to give his name but said the Ukrainian press that often interviews people at the market never portrays them in a positive light or quotes them in the proper context.

LIFE ON THE FRINGE

Despite their public presence in this bustling marketplace, many foreigners remain on the fringes of Ukrainian society, confronting prejudices and police harassment on a regular basis.

Maksym Butkevych, a board member of Amnesty International in Ukraine and a top television journalist, said the number of racially motivated attacks reported to the human rights organization began growing in 2006. He attributed the higher reporting rate to more publicity about immigrant abuses.

According to Butkevych, 35 incidents were reported in 2006. That number was surpassed in the first five months of 2007 alone. Recent incidents included the fatal beating of a 42-year-old Iraqi in Kyiv and the murder of 34-year-old Georgian Moris Yugashvili.

Butkevych said the list was incomplete, since many cases, particularly those in the regions, either go unreported or cannot be tracked because of inadequate statistics.

Migrants often fear reporting incidents to the authorities. “I have been living in Ukraine for eight years and have experienced xenophobia more than once, as have other members of the African community in Kyiv, which counts about 2,000 people,” said Charles Afante Yeboa, head of the Kyiv-based African Center. “But in most cases [victims] don’t go to the police, as they are often disposed toward us with hostility as well.”

Walich Harfouch, who is of Lebanese origin and publishes a paparazzi magazine, said Ukraine should learn from its European neighbors and enact anti-bias laws and rigorously prosecute racist actions.

On 12 February, the Council of Europe urged Ukraine to strengthen its legislation against racially motivated crimes and to adopt comprehensive anti-discrimination laws, citing a lack of prosecutions against such offenses.

“What we need is more statistical information and a systematic approach to the issue,” Butkevych said. “The second step is to stamp out ‘hidden racism,’ which takes place even in the Ministry of Internal Affairs.”

Immigrant advocates are concerned about the threat posed by skinheads in Ukraine after a Kuwaiti man reported being attacked by 10 people with a “skinhead appearance” in Odessa last July. The man was hospitalized with head injuries.

Skinhead movements are known to exist in Kyiv and most other large cities, including Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Lviv, and Odessa.

Government authorities insist there has been no systematic rise in racially motivated violence, but several rabbis and other critics have decried a lack of state and local policies promoting tolerance and countering discrimination. In the meantime, foreigners aren’t taking any chances. “We keep to ourselves,” Karim explained.

Source: Transitions OnLine