Hundreds of Nepali migrant workers never return home, not even in coffins. They simply disappear. There are plenty of stories about the high mortality rate of Nepali workers abroad, or migrants being cheated by recruiters. Less well known is the fact that many Nepalis simply disappear while working abroad. The Gulf countries and Malaysia have […]
Simplifying the recruitment process and easing restrictions will help Nepalis working in Afghanistan more than a blanket ban Dhan Singh Dhami could have been at his duty station as a security guard in Afghanistan by now, but a four-month ban on Nepalis working in the war-torn country delayed his plan. After the death of 13 […]
Man Bahadur Limbu went to Malaysia in 2002, hoping to escape poverty and war. He worked in a factory for four years and was allowed to visit his family only once, in 2004. He endured the burden of a loan, inhuman working conditions and separation from family. Man Bahadur, a fifth-grade dropout, ploughed his savings […]
Long before the earthquake hit last year, the districts around Kathmandu were already hotbeds of trafficking Charimaya Tamang was just 16 when she was drugged, trafficked and sold into a brothel in India. She was rescued, and returned to Nepal in 1996. Twenty years later, Nepal has introduced multiple measures, most importantly the 1998 National […]
Nepali workers are unlawfully forced to become ‘illegal’ by unscrupulous employers, recruiters and the government. When Malaysia launched a massive crackdown on illegal migrant workers in 2014, thousands of Nepalis without passports here were left with only two options: return home or get arrested. To return home without passports, Nepali workers would require travel documents. […]
Among the factors dissuading Nepalis from working in Malaysia is widespread harassment and robberies by locals After getting his boarding pass for a Kathmandu-bound plane, Basanta Basnet, 22, looked relaxed at Kuala Lumpur airport last week. He was going home after four years in Malaysia. When asked if he plans to return, he replied firmly: […]
Under sustained international criticism Qatar has reformed its controversial laws governing migrant workers. But for significant improvement in labour conditions there have to be changes in the way the Nepal government and recruiters treat their own workers. After Qatar’s king approved an amendment to the law last week, more than 400,000 Nepali migrant workers, mostly hired for construction of […]
After the Department of Foreign Employment (DoFE) began issuing labour permits from its Tahachal office last year, the road leading to it past Soaltee Crowne Plaza was perpetually teeming with migrant workers lining up for their travel documents. But this week, after the government’s new zero-cost migration policy came into effect, the road is crowded […]
Nepal and Qatar agree an overseas contract worker shouldn’t have to pay any fees to recruiters. Where have we heard that before? During his four-day visit to Nepal this week, Qatar’s labour minister Abdullah Bin Saleh Mubarak Al-Khulaifi said migrant workers shouldn’t have to pay anything to go to work in the gas-rich kingdom that […]