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Indian migrant workers on their way home: the dream of a better life
Photo: Amit Dave / REUTERS
It's now been two years since Madina last touched her sons.
Sometimes she can at least see them on the screen.
Whenever her niece calls, the only one in the family with an internet connection.
The two are 9 and 16 years old and live with Madina's parents.
When she first went out, the youngest was a baby.
Your sons should have a better time.
They should go to a good school, not like their mother, who could never learn a trade.
Madina comes from Tajikistan, the poorest state in Central Asia on the border with Afghanistan.
There is an authoritarian ruler in their homeland and hardly any work for the nine million citizens, apart from agriculture.
That is why around a million Tajiks come to Russia every year to earn money.
In 2011 Madina and her husband were among them.
In Moscow she found a job as a cleaner and cook, and her husband took on auxiliary jobs in construction.
In good months they sent home the equivalent of up to 110 euros.
But there have only been bad months since the beginning of the corona pandemic.
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