It's not just security issues that make life increasingly uncomfortable for Iranians in Iraqi Kurdistan. The downturn in the region's economic fortunes is also having an impact on the migrant workers. Political disputes between Iraqi Kurdistan and the federal government in Baghdad has seen the Kurdish economy starved of cash, with Baghdad unwilling, and now apparently unable, to send the independent region their share of the federal budget. Coupled with the current security crisis caused by the extremist group known as the Islamic State, this has seen a major downturn in the Kurdish boom towns over the past year.
Which is why some locals are saying that migrant workers are just another burden.
“The presence of foreign workers leads to higher unemployment in the region,” argues Omar Mohammed, head of the Garmian branch of a local trade union, the Kurdistan Worker's Syndicate; the Garmian area is also near the Iranian border. “Foreign workers will do all kinds of jobs for a pittance but locals won't accept such low wages.” Often, Mohammed admits, migrant workers will do the job just as well and take less money for it.
“Iranian workers have become a burden as they reduce job opportunities for the citizens of the region,” complains Abdul Majid, who heads the Sulaymaniyah province's Department of Labour, part of the regional Ministry of Labour. “We want to try and organize them so that their negative impact is reduced and we have some plans we will try and implement through the issue of residency.”
As yet there has been no formal decision to change anything and Majid wouldn't comment further on when, or if, his department would act upon any of the potential plans. Still, most of the Iranian migrant workers applying for a residency believe the plan is unofficial and already in action as they find it increasingly impossible to get a permit to stay legally.
“If I am not granted a residency permit for Sulaymaniyah, I can't see my family more than three times a year,” complains Mustafa Yazdan Bann, who has left his wife and two daughters in Kermanshah, Iran, in order to work in Iraqi Kurdistan. Bann is a fine arts graduate and a painter but he works on construction sites and part time in a hotel in Iraqi Kurdistan.
“We are waiting to see what happens next,” he says. “And to see in which direction Iran will move. If the sanctions are lifted and the Iranian economy improves and things get more comfortable, I will return to Iran. I won't stay away from my family any longer than I have to.”
(Iran image via Shutterstock)
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