Karabakh war veterans claim difficulties with employment in Azerbaijan

Veterans of the Karabakh war and family members of the killed soldiers and officers are offered by the Azerbaijani authorities the low-paid jobs as builders and waiters, and owners of cars and land plots are refused to be recognized as unemployed, participants of the combat actions in Nagorno-Karabakh complain.

Reserve Captain Khalid Agali was engaged in human rights activities before being drafted to the front, and after completing his service, he returned to his previous job. Meanwhile, three of his fellow countrymen from the Djalilabad District could not find job, Khalid Agali told the “Caucasian Knot” correspondent.

Bilal Abbasov, a resident of the Ilisu village in the Gakh District, a son of farmer Movlud Abbasov, shares his dissatisfaction that people with secondary education who returned from the war are offered working professions with low wages within the veteran employment programme.

“The guys who served together with me have been offered to work at construction sites and as waiters. They are not against, but they are paid little there. Besides, participants of the war do not consider it worthy to serve restaurant visitors. War veterans want to be accepted into government service,” Bilal Abbasov told the “Caucasian Knot” correspondent.

After returning from the war, Senior Lieutenant Vyusal Azaev was looking for a job in his native Saatli District. The man said that he saw how war veterans who applied to an employment agency were refused because they owned land plots on which, as officials believed, they could earn their living being engaged in agricultural activities. According to the employment agency’s rules, only citizens who do not have a land plot or a car may be granted the status of unemployed, otherwise officials suggest that a person can earn money by farming and taxing, Vyusal Azaev has told the “Caucasian Knot” correspondent.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on October 15, 2021 at 12:57 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.