Tweet
ARMENIAN EMIGRATION CREATES 'WOMEN-ONLY' VILLAGES
By Mariam Harutunian (AFP)
Agence France Presse
Sept 19 2011
VARDADZOR, Armenia - There are no men to be seen in the rural lanes
of Vardzador as mother-of-four Susanna Asatrian makes her way to the
fields to thresh barley and wheat.
Her husband has left the country in search of work like so many other
men in remote, impoverished Armenian settlements, leaving them almost
entirely populated by women to symbolise the country's depopulation
problem.
"It's a total matriarchate. We even joke that our village's name
should be changed from 'Canyon of Roses' to 'Canyon of Women',"
said the 36-year-old.
In the midst of the harvest season in Vardadzor, around 130 kilometres
(80 miles) from the ex-Soviet state's capital Yerevan, women do the
hard agricultural labour, prepare for the long winter ahead and raise
their children practically without male assistance.
"The children miss their father, but what can we do?" asked Asatrian.
In villages like this, women traditionally marry young and their
husbands often leave after their honeymoon to work as migrant
labourers, only returning for a couple of months each year.
The men who remain are largely elderly.
More than a million people left Armenia in the years from 1988 to 2007,
with around two-thirds of them relocating to Russia, like Asatrian's
husband, leaving the small Caucasus republic with a current population
of 3.2 million.
Asatrian is one of the lucky ones, however; her husband comes home
every New Year, rings her up frequently and sends hundreds of dollars
to support the family every few months.
Others fear that their husbands will find new wives in Russia and
abandon them completely, as in the case of one woman from Vardadzor
whose emigrant partner broke off contact while she was expecting her
second baby.
"There has been no news of him for the past 10 years, not a single
phone call," said the 29-year-old who gave her name as Tamara.
"People say that he lives in Omsk with an older Russian woman, brings
up her child and does not want to think about us."
Emigration has increased again in recent months, a trend which analysts
link to the economic recovery after the global financial crisis.
The United Nations Population Fund and the state statistics agency
estimate that some 25,000-30,000 people abandon Armenia permanently
each year.
"Those who leave the country are mainly young men in the prime of their
life," said Garik Hayrapetian of the United Nations Population Fund.
"The situation negatively affects the population's reproduction and
gender balance and contributes to the ageing of society."
Armenia's opposition argues that migration threatens the country's
national security, and President Serzh Sarkisian has declared that
the authorities must take action.
"The number of people looking for overseas success is large, and
of course we should be seriously concerned about this problem,"
Sarkisian said earlier this year, suggesting that the only way to
reverse the trend was to create better economic conditions.
Surveys have suggested that 70-75 percent of emigrants leave because
of the lack of job opportunities and low wages in a country that
suffers from economic isolation because its borders with neighbours
Turkey and Azerbaijan have long been closed due to political disputes.
But the head of the country's migration agency Gagik Eganian accused
the opposition of trying to score political points by describing the
latest wave of emigration as catastrophic and suggesting that Armenia
was becoming "deserted".
"There is no data on what proportion of these people (this year's
emigrants) left the country forever," he said.
Some analysts also argue that migration has economic benefits,
with many families surviving on money sent home by relatives working
abroad -- $772 million (548 million euros) in the first half of this
year alone.
But in a more worrying statistic, the United Nations Population Fund
says that 44 percent of people responding to one of its surveys did
not see a future for themselves and their children in Armenia.
Hayrapetian also raised concerns that not only the poor and jobless
were now leaving.
"Migration has changed qualitatively. Well-off people with higher
education and well-paid jobs are now emigrating," he said.
The government is preparing what it calls a National Programme for
Migration Reduction, which is due to be launched soon, while another
scheme entitled 'Come Home' aims to encourage people from the huge
Armenian diaspora to resettle in their ethnic homeland.
Back in Vardadzor, Susanna Asatrian's children keep in contact with
their father via the internet, while others wait expectantly for their
dads to return from Russia for Christmas -- although some of them,
it seems, are likely to be disappointed.
By Mariam Harutunian (AFP)
Agence France Presse
Sept 19 2011
VARDADZOR, Armenia - There are no men to be seen in the rural lanes
of Vardzador as mother-of-four Susanna Asatrian makes her way to the
fields to thresh barley and wheat.
Her husband has left the country in search of work like so many other
men in remote, impoverished Armenian settlements, leaving them almost
entirely populated by women to symbolise the country's depopulation
problem.
"It's a total matriarchate. We even joke that our village's name
should be changed from 'Canyon of Roses' to 'Canyon of Women',"
said the 36-year-old.
In the midst of the harvest season in Vardadzor, around 130 kilometres
(80 miles) from the ex-Soviet state's capital Yerevan, women do the
hard agricultural labour, prepare for the long winter ahead and raise
their children practically without male assistance.
"The children miss their father, but what can we do?" asked Asatrian.
In villages like this, women traditionally marry young and their
husbands often leave after their honeymoon to work as migrant
labourers, only returning for a couple of months each year.
The men who remain are largely elderly.
More than a million people left Armenia in the years from 1988 to 2007,
with around two-thirds of them relocating to Russia, like Asatrian's
husband, leaving the small Caucasus republic with a current population
of 3.2 million.
Asatrian is one of the lucky ones, however; her husband comes home
every New Year, rings her up frequently and sends hundreds of dollars
to support the family every few months.
Others fear that their husbands will find new wives in Russia and
abandon them completely, as in the case of one woman from Vardadzor
whose emigrant partner broke off contact while she was expecting her
second baby.
"There has been no news of him for the past 10 years, not a single
phone call," said the 29-year-old who gave her name as Tamara.
"People say that he lives in Omsk with an older Russian woman, brings
up her child and does not want to think about us."
Emigration has increased again in recent months, a trend which analysts
link to the economic recovery after the global financial crisis.
The United Nations Population Fund and the state statistics agency
estimate that some 25,000-30,000 people abandon Armenia permanently
each year.
"Those who leave the country are mainly young men in the prime of their
life," said Garik Hayrapetian of the United Nations Population Fund.
"The situation negatively affects the population's reproduction and
gender balance and contributes to the ageing of society."
Armenia's opposition argues that migration threatens the country's
national security, and President Serzh Sarkisian has declared that
the authorities must take action.
"The number of people looking for overseas success is large, and
of course we should be seriously concerned about this problem,"
Sarkisian said earlier this year, suggesting that the only way to
reverse the trend was to create better economic conditions.
Surveys have suggested that 70-75 percent of emigrants leave because
of the lack of job opportunities and low wages in a country that
suffers from economic isolation because its borders with neighbours
Turkey and Azerbaijan have long been closed due to political disputes.
But the head of the country's migration agency Gagik Eganian accused
the opposition of trying to score political points by describing the
latest wave of emigration as catastrophic and suggesting that Armenia
was becoming "deserted".
"There is no data on what proportion of these people (this year's
emigrants) left the country forever," he said.
Some analysts also argue that migration has economic benefits,
with many families surviving on money sent home by relatives working
abroad -- $772 million (548 million euros) in the first half of this
year alone.
But in a more worrying statistic, the United Nations Population Fund
says that 44 percent of people responding to one of its surveys did
not see a future for themselves and their children in Armenia.
Hayrapetian also raised concerns that not only the poor and jobless
were now leaving.
"Migration has changed qualitatively. Well-off people with higher
education and well-paid jobs are now emigrating," he said.
The government is preparing what it calls a National Programme for
Migration Reduction, which is due to be launched soon, while another
scheme entitled 'Come Home' aims to encourage people from the huge
Armenian diaspora to resettle in their ethnic homeland.
Back in Vardadzor, Susanna Asatrian's children keep in contact with
their father via the internet, while others wait expectantly for their
dads to return from Russia for Christmas -- although some of them,
it seems, are likely to be disappointed.