Roshan Sedhai

The day when each Nepali household will have at least one member working in foreign lands is not very far. The mass exodus the country witnessed in the last two decades is phenomenal and oftentimes appalling. Official figures from the Department of Foreign Employment show 3505 workers left the country in the fiscal year 1993/94 while the number reached 384,665 in the fiscal year 2011/12. In other words, the number of youths who used to leave the country annually some two decades ago are now leaving in a single day.

Remittance has become fundamental in compensating for the decline in almost all the other economic sectors. Figures from the Nepal Rastra Bank show that the country receives foreign currency worth over Rs 1 billion each day. The remittance Nepal receives from both formal and informal sectors roughly equals about 30 percent of the country’s total Gross Domestic Product. So, the impact of our migrant workforce is more pervasive than some us would like to believe.

But, let’s turn our attention to a different side of this sector. The state hardly deploys 30 diplomats (excluding few labour attachés) to support over 2 million citizens working in five different countries. How can these staffers, confined to a small office in the Capital of the destination, cater to the needs of  migrant workers scattered all over the country? How can they defend the rights of their citizens on foreign soil when the host country has not signed any obligatory agreement to do so? The Department of Foreign Employment, with barely 100 staffs, is assigned the task of looking after the entire foreign employment sector. How can this office perform its regular duties of monitoring, endorsing plans and policies and so on with a compulsion to provide service to around two thousands service seekers daily? How can we expect this understaffed office to oversee and combat the ever-expanding anomalies in foreign labour migration across the nation when it’s not even able to cope with paperwork?

Likewise, a poor citizen in Nepal pays Rs 5000 for a passport, the highest price in South Asia for the lengthiest service. Consider his obligation to pay somewhere in between Rs 60,000 to 12,000 as service charge to his agent, not knowing that his employer has already paid for all of his expenses.

Think about the meanest treatment he receives from an agent who makes a comfortable living out of fee he pays, a corrupt official at every another office from the Village Development Committee to the Immigration of the Tribhuvan International airport,all of whom receive perks from the tax he pays.

The state is a mere spectator to the rampant physical, sexual and economical abuse of its workers in foreign lands. It fails to look after hundreds of its citizens who die, are imprisoned, injured or cheated every year. It is apathetic towards their family members. Despite a drastic change in the foreign employment situation in the country, the state continues to overlook this sector as it did when a small section of our population started taking overseas employment as a refuge to escape the Maoist insurgency.

The resources and the budget invested by the government for foreign employment remain almost the same as they were two decades ago. The government has violated its own provision enlisted in the Foreign Employment Act, 2007 which necessitates the establishment of a mission and deputation of labour attachés in a country with more than 5,000 Nepali workers. All in all, the government has not even considered it important to sign a labour agreement with Malaysia, the largest destination where around 700,000 Nepalis work.

Other South Asian countries like Sri Lanka and Bangladesh have established a full fledged ministry—the Ministry of Foreign Employment Promotion and Welfare and Ministry of Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment respectively—with enough staffers to look into the issue of migrant workers. What is noteworthy is that Nepal has been sending a much higher number of workers abroad than Sri Lanka.

It is time for everyone to acknowledge the harsh reality of joblessness inside the country. More than 400,000 people are leaving the country while around 450,000 youths enter the job market each year. It’s true that a few people get allured to overseas employment due to the glitz and glamour but for many it is the only alternative. The flow of applications we see for Korean Language Tests and government service are infallible examples of the state failure even to do even the bare minimum in creating jobs.

Had the state assured jobs, a majority of its citizens would not have been compelled to go abroad, who according to the Amnesty International, borrow money from landlords at interest rates as high as 30 percent, just to work as a labourer in the Arabian desert for a salary less than Rs 10,000. Why would a doctor or an engineer or any educated citizen or farmer leave the country if they are assured of facilities other countries provide? Perhaps an extensive research can answer this question.

For the moment, the government must accept its culpability in pushing its citizens to migrate for work. It must accept its utter negligence in safeguarding the rights and welfare of the migrant worker—be it those languishing in foreign jails or facing the death penalty for alleged crimes. When an ambassador conspires with another government against its own nationals or speaks against the protection and promotion of workers’ rights (Dipendra Bhetwal’s case) or when those in the state mechanism rob and rape its own workers (Sita Rai’s case), it is tantamount to a rule of injustice. One would have to be fool not to notice the state absence when the government failed to take a firm stand in defense of workers in Johar Baru of Malaysia where scores of Malaysians attacked the Nepali migrant community. Such instances of powerlessness are a stark mockery of the migrant’s crucial role in keeping the national economy afloat. Nepal has undoubtedly made a giant leap in a short time by putting itself among a handful of nations that have tasted great success in foreign employment. But how long can the government rejoice in the contributions of its workers at the cost of the violation of their human rights and freedom?

Published on: 4 July 2013 | The Kathmandu Post