Caritas Ukraine Urges: Don’t Ignore the Urgent Issue of Re-integrating Migrants

22.11.11
On 11 November a meeting was held in Kyiv that was attended by representatives of the government, community organizations and international organizations to discuss re-integrating Ukrainians who return home after living abroad.

At the meeting the Ukrainian Cabinet of Ministers’ resolution on re-integrating Ukrainian Migrants and the role of the State Migration Service were outlined. The Ministry of Social Services of Ukraine and the State Unemployment Centres reported on their activities and role in re-integrating Ukrainian Citizens. During the event representatives from various Ministries and state organs also shared their experiences with how government bodies are implementing this Plan.

At the meeting in Kyiv, Caritas Ukraine spoke of their many years experience in providing re-integration assistance to Ukrainian citizens; they detailed results, unique issues and problems encountered, and their vision of what their further work will entail.

It is worth nothing that Caritas’ presentation was arguably the most significant, because it showed a large volume of work, effective methodology and a comprehensive vision of how to work in this sphere. Later in the meeting, the Kherson regional centre Successful Woman and the Pavlohrad city foundation Horenye also presented their reports.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) presented their program for re-integrating citizens through the EU project SIREADA. Despite the fact that this project has been functioning since March of this year, the employees of this project have not yet helped re-integrate a single Ukrainian.

At the end of the meeting participants discussed possibilities and strategies that state and NGOs, including the International Migration Service can utilize to provide re-integration assistance.

“Considering the fact that this was one of the first meetings to discuss the issue of re-integration of Ukrainian Migrants to be held on a national level, I would hate to make any premature conclusions. However, it is worth noting that organs of the central government are not prepared to discuss this topic, that they don’t understand the problem and that they are not ready to work at resolving it.

Caritas Ukraine is ready to cooperate with all interested parties and calls on everyone not to ignore the pressing issue of re-integrating Ukrainian migrants,” says Iryna Brych, Coordinator of Re-integration projects for Caritas Ukraine.