Грузины нелегально мигрируют в поисках денег и работы
Безработица и сложная экономическая ситуация являются причинами высокого уровня миграции жителей Грузии в Евросоюз.
размещено 11.04.2009
Автор Майя Мецхваришвили
According to different surveys, every 5th family in Georgia depends on money transfers from abroad. In January 2009, amount of money transferred from Greece to Georgia reached 3.4 million dollars. It is worth mentioning, that the amount of money transferred from Greece is growing each year (with 16.2 million dollars transferred in 2006 and 22.5 million dollars transferred in 2007). This means that number of illegal labor migrants from Georgia to Greece is increasing. This is because Georgia has no labor agreement signed with Greece.
According to the Social Integration Department, Ministry of the Interior of Greece, 13 791 Georgian citizens have permission to living in Greece. According to the World Bank there are 62 174 citizens of Georgia living in Greece. The International Organization for Migration says that there is no precise statistic concerning the number of the citizens of Georgia in Greece. Most of the Georgians living there are illegal mingrants. Therefore, they are not registered in any official data bases. Their number is growing every day. Ways of getting to Greece illegaly is being perfected from day to day.
On of the ways of getting illegally out of Georgia to live in another country are the socalled Graphios, i.e. offices (often Greek) which help people come from Georgia to Greece.
Business of Graphios
It is Thursday today. A number of double decker buses are parked in line in Chavchavadze Street, Kutaisi. A lot of people are crowding around the buses: some of them are sending parcels, others are seeing off their family members to Greece. Tamriko, 47, has a husband and two student children. They are all unemployed.
“I called my neighbor who’s been living in Greece for 6 years. I begged her to get into my shoes and help me go to Greece. She advised me to contact the firm which is arranging my trip. She will pay money to them. Then I will work and pay her debt,” – Tamriko says. She knows roughly the road to Greece: “They say I will get to Turkey. I will hide in a bus for a couple of hours and get to Greece in secret.” Tamriko is not disclosing the name of the firm which is taking her to Greece: “If I get in trouble, I’m lost. I have no other option. That’s why I’m leaving,” – she says
In Chavchavadze street, Kutaisi, there are about 20 graphios. This is how people call firms (so called Greek offices), which help people go to Greece. On the record, none of them confirms that they participate in smuggling of people. That’s why we made an experiment: we visited a number of firms as clients and we visited others as journalists. To say the truth, representatives of the firms were far more outspoken with clients:
“I’m taking a group in two days. I still have a room for one person. If you are a real client, I will put you in that group and you’ll be in Greece in 3 days,” – Ira-Tour representative told us. As a real client, I asked questions concerning routes and I got a comprehensive answer: “I can hide you in a bus. We have a special hide-out in a boot with air-conditioning and everything. You’ll have to be there for 10-12 hours. You’ll get to Greece without a single problem. I have another option: we can go to Turkey and from Turkey get on a Greek island in a motor boat.” I asked him about guarantees: “There are no 100% guarantees for anything, but I can give you 90% guarantee that I will take you to Greece. Besides, you pay money to me only after you get in place. You are not losing anything. It will cost you 3 500 euros. Price is the same with everyone here, but if you are a real client, I can still offer you some advantages,” –he replied.
Next to this office is an office of Mobo-Tour. I came there as a journalist and I got scanty answers as expected: “No chance we take anybody illegaly. Our relatives have been living in a Greek city of Thessaloniki for 18 years already. They are sending invitations and our client submits that invitation to the Greek consulat. If a client gets visa, he pays money to us and goes to Greece legally. We concentrate most of our time on sending parcels,” – Otar Robakidze, a representative of Mobo Tour said.
Read the whole story in English here.
Read the original story in Georgian here.
This investigation was supported by Scoop and originally published in the newspaper "Akhali gazeti" ("New Paper") on 23rd of March 2009. The investigation was also published on the web-portal - www. regions.ge.
