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Children from about 2,000 families of Azerbaijani illegal labor migrants in Istanbul are deprived of the right to go to school because of the lack of registration, Y. Jafarov, the head of the Civil Board for the Propaganda of Azerbaijani National Culture, told Moderator.az.

He said that the majority of the Azerbaijanis living in the working district of Istanbul are employed in the local textile factory and in the construction. Their children cannot go to school because of the lack of registration. The majority of these children at the age of 16 carry out hard physical work with their parents and cannot read or write.

According to the article, Talibzade Alekper and his wife Shahnaz are emigrants from the village Demirchi of district Sharur, Nakhijevan. They told Moderator.az about their difficult situation.

“We are here for a piece of bread. Who needs our illiterate children who can’t even read and write? Can’t our government find a common ground with Turkey so that our children are admitted to school? A 13-year-old child does not know a single letter. They suffer from asthma because of the hard work they do in the basements. They are admitted to Quran lessons but not to school. We bring up 3 boys for the homeland yet they grow up illiterate. No one needs an illiterate soldier. Our salary is being cut off because of the illegal residence as they know that we cannot file a complaint,” they said.

According to the article, other Azerbaijanis in similar situation told Jafarov that they have more than once turned to the Azerbaijani consul in Istanbul, Hasan Zeynalov, with their problems. Still, the officials leading the policy under the slogan "one nation with two states" do not pay attention to their intolerable plight.

“I could only advise them to return to Azerbaijan at least for the children to be able to go to school. Yet the worst part is that finding a job in the homeland is like fishing in the ocean,” Jafarov said.

In December 2013, Azerbaijani service RFE/RL published an article about the Azerbaijani migrants in Turkey. It reported that Azerbaijani migrants face problems in Turkey because they have no resident permits, work contracts, health insurance and so on. The migrants working and living illegally are not only exploited as cheap labor force, but they also fall victims to human trafficking, as well as face the risk of being involved in crime.

In April 2015 Azerbaijani expert on migration Azer Allahveranov told Echo.az that more than half a million Azerbaijani citizens work in the countries of near abroad. These are first of all Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, Kazakhstan and Georgia.