Registration System in Kyrgyzstan (State of the Art)

3.2.2 Registration System in Kyrgyzstan (State of the Art)

Since its independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the new Kyrgyz Republic became party to international agreements like the UN human rights and joined organizations like OSCE (Azimov and Azimov, 2009, p.10). In 1993, the constitution of the new republic, which was in accordance with those international agreements, was established. Particularly the constitution acknowledged the right on free movement within the borders of the country. Several legislative shifts followed on the establishment of the constitution and the Propiska registration system was officially abandoned (Hatcher, 2011, p.11).

In 2002 the Law of the Kyrgyz Republic on “On internal migration” was reformed, which was an essential step forward to more freedom of movement. Through the reform, the registration system should be turned into a notification-based system which contains minimal requirements for internal migrants to register. Further, the fact if someone possesses a registration should no longer be a precondition for being eligible to certain rights and freedoms. Though, at the same time the law also re-introduced the duty – which already existed in the Soviet Union – to inform the authority in the place of arrival for short time visits, which again entails a considerable administrative effort (Azimov and Azimov, 2009, p.11).

However, Azimov and Azimov (2009, p.4) state that the current registration system in “is only a modified form of the Soviet Propiska”. The actual registration procedure doesn’t comply with the “Law on internal migration”. This can be explained by the fact that the practices of registration are more based on “regulations adopted by state authorities and local government that contradict the However, Azimov and Azimov (2009, p.4) state that the current registration system in “is only a modified form of the Soviet Propiska”. The actual registration procedure doesn’t comply with the “Law on internal migration”. This can be explained by the fact that the practices of registration are more based on “regulations adopted by state authorities and local government that contradict the

registration for the access to basic rights and freedom. The results show that internal migrants without registration experience limitations in the access to education, health care, social protection, labour and elections. Beside the Article 13 of the UN Human Rights Declaration which protects the freedom of movement and residence, numerous other Articles are disregarded: The right on education (Art. 26), the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family which contains the right on medical services and social benefits (Art.35), the right on work and on free choice of employment (Art. 23), and the right on political participation (Art.21) (UN, 2013). Most of those rights are also protected by Kyrgyzstan ’s constitution and law, consequently the implementation of the registration system contradicts the Kyrgyz law (Nasritdinov, 2008b, p.115). Through a questionnaire survey conducted within the research of Nasritdinov (2008), some further discriminatory factors like more frequent document check, bribery, arresting, negative attitudes etc. were identified (see figure 3).

Figure 3: Discrimination of migrants without registration

(Source: Nasritdinov, 2008a, p. 17)

Different reasons why people don’t register were identified: One important reason is the high administrative effort someone has to put into registration. Many people just move temporally and therefore don’t want to remove their registration from their place of origin and go through all the administrative steps. E.g. if the registration is changed, the military documents have to be changed as well. Another important reason is that many internal migrants aren’t able to purchase an own property and consequently live in rented apartments. Most of them don’t have a tenancy agreement, since most landlords don’t provide it because they would have to pay more taxes and utility costs (Nasritdinov, 2008a, p.16) and because they fear that the tenants could claim for property (Hatcher, 2011, p.12). The last point roots in former Soviet laws which indicate that every person who has a registration under a certain address is eligible to claim a share of the property. Azimov and Azimov (2009, p.8) further argue that the current registration system “does not motivate a law- abiding migrant to comply with the required procedure” and it “does not permit legalization of internal migrants’ living in their place of stay”, since the legislation on the registration procedure contains many contradictions and much of the procedure depends on individual decisions of officials. However, according to the results of Nasritdinov’s research (2008a, p.17) there are also migrants who don’t face problems without registration and live in Bishkek since years without any attempts to register.

While research on the registration system and internal migration in Kyrgyzstan was mainly conducted in Bishkek, other parts of the country remain widely unexplored. Since the implementation depends much on local self-governance bodies it can be assumed that the implementation of the registration system differs throughout the country. As showed above, internal migration within the South remained rather unexplored. Due to the above discussed differences between the North and the South, the researcher has the hypothesis that registration practise might differ in Northern and Southern Kyrgyzstan. However, Osh tends to experience an increasing population pressure through internal migration as well as Bishkek, therefore it would be expectable to come across difficulties in access to basic services related to lacking registration.