Forced Migration: Its Substance and Causes (Sergey Bulgak)

Раздел "Международные экономические отношения"Migration is defined as the movement of people across some territorial borders. It should be noted that one can differentiate as to the status of the borders crossed (internal and external), the duration (permanent, temporary, seasonal, fluctuation migration) and as to the reasons which determine migration (voluntary and forced migration). The problem of forced migration is rooted in the past and remains topical now. The world has not become much more humane and wars still remain the main reason of forced migration. However, refugees emerged not only during the wars. Frequent plague epidemics forced whole towns and regions to flee where they could to wait till the epidemic was over. Nowadays ecological catastrophes have come to replace epidemics and natural disasters as a reason for the forced outward movement of people. Whatever the reasons for forced migration may be, along with the desire to survive migrants strive to raise their standard of living as well. This is proved by the special attraction some countries present for migrants. These are such countries as the USA, Canada, Australia, the countries of the Middle East, the developed countries of Western Europe. The Russian Federation has not kept aloof either. After the disintegration of the USSR Russia has turned into one of the centres for migration. On the one hand, hundreds of thousands of the former Soviet citizens left it to take up for permanent residence in Israel and Germany. On the other, there are over 1 million of foreigners on its territory at any given time, most of these people becoming aliens after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It should be also noted that legislation in the CIS countries on forced migration urgently needs improving. This is confirmed by the fact that a number of republics and regions of Russia, while subjects of the state, had to adopt their own normative acts in this sphere to compensate temporarily for the lack of federal legislation. The consequences of forced migration are ambivalent. They can have both a positive and a negative impact on the host country’s economy