Bishal Bhattarai

In recent times, Israel has become one of the most lucrative destinations for Nepali migrant workers. Attractive remuneration and facilities, better working conditions and comparative safety have contributed to the recent surge in Nepali migrant workers bound for Israel, especially, women migrant workers (WMWs). Israel is one of the few labor destinations for Nepal where the number of women migrant workers have outnumbered male migrant workers.

Most of the Nepali migrant workers in Israel are employed as caregivers and agriculture workers. Their stay in Israel ranges from 4 to 5 years, depending on their jobs. If the employer is satisfied, their stay can be extended. In the beginning, the demand for Nepali migrant workers in Israel increased when migrant workers from other countries refused to work in sensitive regions perceiving threat to their lives.

The regulating and monitoring mechanism of the government needs to be strengthened so as to take quick action against those involved in irregularities.

Nepali workers earn between US$500 to US$1000 per month with additional facilities of overtime, lodging, meals, etc. Besides remittances, skill transfer, especially in the agriculture sector, is one of the major benefits accruing from their Israeli sojourn.

However, all is not well for Nepali migrant workers in Israel. Frequent and abrupt closure of Israeli labor market has not only added uncertainties, it has also jammed millions of rupees in the process. The mental torture of those aspiring Nepali migrant workers, whose visas have been canceled, is immense.

Israel has stalled visa issuance to Nepali workers since the past five months and this is not the first time that it has happened. In the past too, the Israeli government had temporarily stopped visa issuance. In order to reopen the labor-sending process, Nepal opened its embassy in Israel in a record time.

Ostensibly, the reasons behind the recent closure of Israeli labor market for Nepali migrant workers, among other things, are the excess charges collected from migrant workers, fraudulent activities in the labor-sending process, Nepali workers’ lack of knowledge of language and skills, weak monitoring and supervising mechanism, etc.

Sadly, the reasons given above are valid. The government of Nepal is itself keen on addressing these issues with active and meaningful cooperation of all concerned stakeholders, including the Israeli government. The government has already initiated action against those suspected to be involved in collecting excess charges and has vowed to continue this exercise. However, the government of Nepal needs active support of the Israeli government to break the nexus among the different layers of brokers on both sides, who are found to be involved in charging excess amount from these migrant workers.

To some extent, the aspiring migrant workers are themselves responsible as they are ready to pay as much amount as possible to get an Israeli visa. Ironically, they themselves complain about the high charges once they reach their work destinations. It has also led to the problem of flying visa (visa without works) culminating in the increasing number of unemployed migrant workers, which the government of Israel considers a threat to its internal security. Once the migrant workers have to pay excess charges to go to Israel, they themselves start working as unofficial brokers since they want to collect their extra investment in as much a short time as possible and this chain continues.

In order to break this vicious nexus, massive publicity needs to be done about the required fees, skills, etc. needed to go to Israel. After all, unless the aspiring migrant workers are made aware of these things, it is difficult to solve this problem. At the same time, the regulating and monitoring mechanism of the government also needs to be strengthened so as to take quick action against those involved in irregularities.

Value adding to these migrant workers is essential as in most of the cases the nature of work in Israel is different from the ones these migrant workers are accustomed to in Nepal. They are even unaware of operating basic utilities such as a refrigerator, oven and vacuum cleaner. Lack of knowledge about traffic signals and Israeli culture, tradition, rules and regulations are yet other handicaps to these migrant workers. Similarly, lack of knowledge of languages (basic English and Hebrew) has also created problem for these migrant workers as in most of the cases they are unable to communicate. It has been observed that the skilled migrant workers have better bargaining power than the unskilled raw migrant workers.

Moreover, establishment of safe house in Israel, welfare programs for these migrant workers and their families, safe transfer of their earnings and its productive use, strengthening the Nepali mission in Israel, including the appointment of labor attaché, are some of the measures, which can address some of the issues raised by the Israeli side and enhance the welfare of Nepali migrant workers.

The issue of reintegration of these migrant workers in Nepal is yet another big challenge. Sometimes, it is observed that the social cost incurred far supersedes the economic benefits gained from the Israeli sojourn. Family breakdown, plight of the children, weakening of social fabric, adverse impacts resulting from inability to cope with the transition from a closed society to an extremely open society are some of the problems that these migrant workers face. Unlike economic benefits, these adverse impacts persist for a longer period of time. It leads us to question the very legitimacy of sending Nepali migrant workers abroad. In fact, like foreign aid, it is just a stop-gap arrangement and our main long-term goal should be to utilize our human resources in our own developmental process.

Realizing the importance of the Israeli labor market, the government of Nepal has vowed to do everything possible to reopen the destination. The recent visit of the labor minister to Israel should be looked at in this perspective. A concrete mechanism to sort out all these irregularities is the need of the hour so that in future such types of complaints do not reoccur. It is heartening to know that both the concerned authorities in Israel and in Nepal are working in this regard.

(Writer is with Ministry of Labor and Transport Management.)

Published on: 5 September 2009 | Republica