Detention Center for migrants in St. Petersburg in planning

Irina Titova (2004)

City Hall is planning to open its first temporary accommodation center to hold illegal migrants until they leave or are deported or voluntary repatriation.

The press service of the City Hall's law, order and security committee said a law is being drafted that will regulate the center's operations.

The new center will be capable of holding up to 270 people and will have food and security services, said spokesperson for the committee.

"People are to be able to live their individually or with their families," a spokeswoman said Thursday. "They'll be able to cook there themselves. But they'll have to stay in there."

Illegal migrants will not be allowed to stay in the center for more than three months.

Within that time local police and other officials will negotiate with the consulates or official representatives of illegal migrants, arrange their tickets home, and prepare the deportation, she added.

Children, who will stay in the center will be given school lessons there, she said.

Alexander Babikov, head of the city Migration Service, said the new center will not be a jail, but people will be locked in and provided with food and places to sleep and wash.

"We are developing the juridical, sanitary and political standards for the center," Babikov said. He said he could not be more specific because planning is still at an early stage.

Police say about 140,000 illegal migrants live in St. Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast. Most are migrant workers from former Soviet republics such as the Ukraine, Belarus, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, where the economic situation is rather poor.

It is often said that neither the city authorities nor the police know what to do about migrants. Even when police deport them to their homelands, putting them on trains, they can return in a few days. Quite often, if the police catch them on the streets, they simply fine them and let them go on their way.

In 2003 about 2,500 illegal migrants were taken out of St. Petersburg by local police. About 95,000 people migrants were dealt with by the city government.

The Migration Department of the city police reported in February that the city police has records of 8,400 displaced persons, including 511 refugees mainly from Afghanistan, and more than 7,000 displaced persons from Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and the Chechnya.

Police say that illegal migrants who arrive in the city often lack proper papers. They are easily exploited and get involved in crime. They say 1,500 crimes were committed by illegal migrants last year.

At the same time, migrants often complain of maltreatment by the police.

The new law, due to go before the Legislative Assembly in mid May, will allow the temporary accommodation center is designed to help protect migrants' rights.

The spokeswoman said Moscow already has similar centers for migrants.

"St. Petersburg is the country's second-largest city, and it also has serious problems with illegal migration," she said. "Therefore we definitely need such a center."

She said the center in St. Petersburg is to be open by the end of 2004 or the beginning of 2005.

Vladimir Shnittke, head of the welfare branch of St. Petersburg human rights organization of Memorial, said the idea of a St. Petersburg accommodation center is overdue.

"If only that center is organized according to international standards and the people held there are treated according to the standards," he said.

The problem with illegal migrants in the city is acute, he added.

Having no work or residence permits, these migrants often become hostages of their situation, Shnittke said.

Illegal migrants usually become cheap labor for their employers. The police also extort money from them, Shnittke said.