Russia - ACTING UP - Svetlana Gannushkina
1,700 views · Published 29 December 2011 · 1:50 · Indexed 21 October 2026
Channel: Human Rights Watch · 2011 · Nonprofits & Activism
ACTING UP - RUSSIA'S CIVIL SOCIETY - Portraits by Platon for Human Rights Watch - Kakhramon, 48, is an immigrant worker from Tajikistan, laboring on a Moscow high-rise construction site. According to Svetlana Gannushkina, 69, of the organization Civic Assistance Committee, men like him are often doubly endangered: they may be attacked by xenophobic thugs on the street, and then, when the police come, find themselves arrested as the alleged perpetrator, not the victim. Gannushkina taught advanced mathematics for 30 years at a university in Moscow. When ethnic unrest struck parts of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, she formed a group to assist people displaced by violence. Today, among other things she focuses on the plight of migrant workers in Russia, mostly men from Central Asia who perform menial and physical labor for miserly wages. There may be as many as 10 million of them all over the country, she says.
More from this channel
-
1:58
Tibet Puts Human Rights in Spotlight
-
5:08
Tunisia Tries to Silence Human Rights Watch
-
3:08
Appeal from Human Rights Defender in Northeastern DR Congo to President Barack Obama
-
5:14
No Refuge: Migrants in Greece
-
13:25
US Should Sever Ties with Abusive Commanders
-
2:51
Youth Producing Change London 25-26 March, 2011
-
2:39
Sammy's Story: Voices for Palliative Care in Kenya
-
1:22
Russia - ACTING UP - Sergei Kovalev