How Armenia solves the problems of the Karabakh people: are the government's projects effective?
Assistance to resettlers from NK
More than 150 thousand Armenians who have moved from Nagorno-Karabakh have been recognized as refugees by the Armenian authorities.
Over 100,000 of them were forced to leave their homes after the military actions of September 19-20, which Azerbaijan launched after a 10-month blockade. In less than a week, Armenia received and accommodated all the arrivals. International partners recognized that a small and poor country managed to cope with this ordeal without tent camps.
The government developed and implemented humanitarian programs in parallel with the influx of people. They are ongoing and cover a wide range of issues. They included housing and employment, medical and social assistance, continuing education and psychological support. The country is trying to create conditions for the full integration of the Karabakh Armenians.
Acknowledging the complexity of the situation and the importance of the government’s efforts to solve the problems of Karabakh Armenians, both migrants and experts consider the programs developed in the deadline to be insufficiently effective. Human rights activist Larisa Alaverdyan makes a proposal on how to solve the main problem of refugees, how to provide them with housing.
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Social assistance
The Armenian authorities have allocated over 54 billion drams ($135 million) for the needs of Nagorno-Karabakh resettlers.
The Armenian government provides 100,000 drams ($250) to each of them, regardless of their age, for urgent expenses. 108,336 people have already received this assistance. 40,000 drams ($100) per month is allocated to all family members for rent, and an additional 10,000 drams ($25) for utility expenses.
Housing rent is not compensated to those who have housing in Armenia, as well as to those placed in special centers. However, they are still allocated an amount to pay for utilities. This decision applies not only to those who moved to Armenia after 12:00 on September 24, when Azerbaijan finally opened the Lachin corridor and people were able to leave.
According to the government’s decision, assistance will also be allocated to those who were here before the September military actions, including during the days of the blockade. The program has been implemented since October 1 and will continue for six months.
Saving for a rainy day
In November and December, resettlers were also given an additional 50,000 drams ($125) for “primary consumer expenditures.” However, the beneficiaries of this program were restricted. Those who had more than 2 million drams ($5,000) in their bank accounts as of October 2 were excluded.
“My mother came to visit me in Yerevan in August 2022, three months before the blockade. She was never able to return to Stepanakert. All this time she lived with me, and I did not allow her to withdraw her pension from her card. As a result, she accumulated a certain amount of money during the year, which together with the existing balance exceeded 2 million.
If it’s stolen money, let them seize it and put the owner in jail. And if it’s honest money, why is a person who has lost his home, property, motherland deprived of help?” the Yerevan resident is indignant. – Yerevan resident Marine Baghdasaryan is indignant.
Larisa Alaverdyan, Armenia’s first ombudsman and head of the NGO “Against Legal Arbitrariness,” considers the government’s decision not to pay aid to displaced persons with savings “cynical.”
“It is impossible to describe what is happening with the issuance of financial support, pensions and allowances to displaced people. People still have not been paid their pensions. For three months they have been waiting, they were told they would be paid in December, and now they say they will be paid in January. This is an unprecedented attitude towards refugees.
All these payments were envisaged by the Armenian budget when the Artsakh people were still living at home. What difference does it make which city they receive them from now? By not issuing pensions and allowances, they are deprived of their means of subsistence. How can one save money on people who have become victims of this tragedy, including because of the policy of these authorities?”.
Student compensation
The Government of Armenia allocates tuition fee reimbursements to all 1,844 Karabakh students studying at state universities in Armenia. The support is envisaged for the 2023-24 academic year and covers all or part of the tuition fees.
The tuition fees are compensated not only for the students of higher education institutions, but also for the students of primary and secondary vocational education institutions.
According to the Minister of Education Zhanna Andreasyan, the possibility of scholarship payments for the entire period of study is also being considered.
Nvard Gasparyan, having obtained the highest scores, entered the Law Faculty of Artsakh State University in 2022 on a free basis. There were 24 students in the same group with her, one of them died during the war on September 19-20, 2023, three of them moved to Russia. All the others are enrolled at Yerevan State University.
There are no free places at YSU Law Faculty. Tuition is 1 million drams ($2,500) per year. The government has taken over partial payment.
“We were told that 300,000 [$750] should be paid by ourselves. But now my family doesn’t have this possibility. We pay 250,000 ($625) a month just to rent an apartment. So I decided to switch to part-time study so that I could find a job and pay extra for my studies myself,” says Nward.
Employment of teachers
The government has decided to provide jobs for teachers resettled from NK.
According to the Ministry of Education, 200 people applied for jobs. By mid-December, 188 had already been employed in Armenian state educational institutions.
Karina Sargsyan taught geography at school and at Artsakh State University. She filled out an application for employment on the electronic platform of the Ministry of Education, but has not yet received any offers.
“In one of the Yerevan schools I applied to, I was offered five hours of geography for a salary of 20,000 drams ($50). And the schedule is such that I have to go to work every day. And the school is far from home, I have to spend about 8,000 drams ($20) for transportation and get only 12,000 ($30),” she says.
Karina refused this offer and decided to retrain herself. She enrolled in hairdressing courses.
“In my life I wouldn’t have believed that someday I would have to pick up a comb and scissors. Students call me all the time, telling me about their experiences, reminiscing about our classes. I cry, and they comfort me. They say that you brought us up strong, but now you are crying. And I pull myself together,” she says.
As of November 2023, there are 1790 teacher vacancies in Armenia, mostly in the regions.
Stella Margaryan got a job through the electronic platform of the Ministry of Education in a school in Yerevan. Her salary is 52,000 thousand drams ($130) and she works from 12:00 to 17:00 hours daily.
In NK, Stella taught elementary grades, she had 20 hours for which she received 170,000 drams ($425).
“In Armenia they get much less for the same 20 hours. We are reproached for not accepting low wages. But the fact is that we all rent housing for fabulous money. So the salary is not enough for anything,” she says.
She can’t stay in this job precisely because of the low salary. She is thinking of taking on pupils and practicing with them at home. But no one here knows her as a sought-after teacher. She hasn’t made a final decision yet.
Employment programs for all occupations
The Armenian government implements several different employment programs for Karabakh residents.
According to the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, as of December 2023, 5,351 people are employed in the fields of manufacturing, education, services, and construction.
3929 job seekers have been registered in 49 centers of the Unified Social Service. 1608 received employment referrals from the service, 438 of them are already employed.
180 medical workers from NK have started working in different clinics of Yerevan and marzes.
As in the field of education, most of the vacancies for medical workers are in regional hospitals and polyclinics. The government provides an additional payment of three times the monthly salary for up to 6 months to encourage those who agree to work in the regions.
To help compatriots, various NGOs organize job fairs. Here, job seekers have direct contact with potential employers.
Anna Grigoryan found a job at the Artsakh Career Expo job fair. She got a job as a lab technician at a chemical production company.
“The salary is not high, I get 130,000 ($325) drams, but it’s better than nothing,” she says.
Anna’s husband died in the 44-day war. She has four minor children. The family rents an apartment in Yerevan for 300,000 ($750) drams.
“Every month we have to give our salaries and government financial aid to the owner of the apartment. We barely survive on allowances. We are reproached that we receive financial aid for each family member, but we complain about the difficulties. People don’t realize that all the money goes to rent,” she says.
“Where there is revenue, there should be taxes”
The government has decided to monitor more strictly that landlords rent housing under contracts and pay taxes. In case of non-payment, they face fines.
Because of this, the landlords increased their fees to include the amount of tax (10%). This further complicated the situation for the resettlers.
The State Revenue Committee announced that their motto is “where there is income, there should be taxes”.
Anush Mkrtchyan and her family rented an apartment in Yerevan for 250,000 drams ($625). After learning about the tax, the landlord demanded an even higher amount.
“250,000 is already very expensive for our family with three children. It will be even more difficult to pay the extra amount,” says Anush.
She is raising her children alone; her husband passed away a few years ago. Her mother and sister live with her. Not all family members have yet received the financial aid that resettled people are entitled to.
“No one understands why this happened. They say it’s a technical problem. But there is no way to fix it. It is unknown when we will receive this assistance,” she says.
Housing is the main problem
The most difficult problem for the displaced is to solve is the problem of housing. According to official data, of the more than 100,000 people who arrived after the September war, 59,000 used the free housing provided by the government.
They were placed mainly in the border regions of the country. And since the situation on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border of Armenia is unstable, many refused to stay here. They preferred to solve the housing issue on their own. And the skyrocketing rent forced some of them to leave Armenia altogether.
“In order for me to study at university and for my parents to find a job, we had to rent an apartment in Yerevan. But the rent is so high that it is impossible to pay so much even if you work. So we decided to leave for Russia. Our relatives found us an apartment for 170 dollars. In Yerevan, we would have paid 650-750 dollars for such an apartment,” says Lina Bagryan, who moved with her family to Krasnodar.
“The housing problem can be solved.”
Former Ombudsman Larisa Alaverdyan believes that it is possible to find more effective solutions to the housing problems of displaced persons than rent payments. She suggests the following:
Social housing
“No country, even the richest, can make all its residents become owners of apartments and houses, because everywhere there is a significant stratification of society into the more wealthy and less wealthy. In such cases, countries provide the needy with social housing, which is the property of the state.
Yerevan has been experiencing a construction boom for a year now. Active construction works are going on in the regions of the country as well. The Armenian Government should purchase such housing with the funds received from international partners to support refugees and provide them exclusively on the rights of use, without the right of ownership or exchange.
Resettlers would only have to pay for utilities. And they would not have to worry about being left on the streets the next day.
When people settle down and start earning, they should be given the opportunity to pay for the cost of this housing in installments. And eventually they will have property.”
Modular cottages
“There is a charitable organization in Armenia which, with the financial support of its donors, can provide cottages worth 13,200,000 drams ($33,000) to Artsakh residents for 3,800,000 drams ($9,500). Some things will have to be completed, and in total one cottage will cost 5 million drams ($12,500). The state can purchase these cottages and provide them to the displaced people with the possibility to buy them back from the state for 5 million AMD ($12,500).
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Assistance to resettlers from NK
