Experts on Sunday called for concerted efforts from all stakeholders to minimize social cost of foreign employment. Although foreign employment has made a few positive impacts, experts maintained that the country has incurred a huge social cost, including family disintegration, rise in the number of handicapped people and deserted villages. 

Speaking a National Seminar on Social Cost of Labor Migration in Nepal jointly organized by Fredric Ebert Stiftung and Class Nepal in Kathmandu on Sunday, Chairperson of Paurakhi Nepal Manju Gurung said Nepal is likely to face the fate of Philippines if urgent efforts are not taken to reduce the social cost of labor migration. "While villages are literally turning into elderly homes, many youths are returning home with various forms of disabilities. Instances of family disintegration are equally rampant across the country," said Gurung.

Paurakhi Nepal is a non-governmental organization working for safe migration. While four dead bodies are being brought back home on an average every day, almost all villages are deserted with all cultivable left land barren. "Nepal is likely to face a grave situation as a large number of women are forced to come back home with unwanted pregnancy. The children born from such mothers are likely to be left in a state statelessness," Gurung further said.

Experts maintained that the government´s failure to generate employment opportunities at home had forced a large number of Nepali youths to go abroad. They argued that creation of employment opportunities at home was the only effective way to reduce the social cost that Nepal may have to face in coming years should this trend continue. 

Speaking on the occasion, FES-Nepal head Dev Raj Dahal argued that Nepal´s formal economy is dysfunctional while more than 90 percent of Nepal´s 11.12 million workers are forced to work in informal sectors without any social protection.

While establishment of proper institutional and regulatory framework, formation of policies and laws on workers protection, language and skill training for the migrant workers and bilateral agreements between the sending and receiving countries are a must at national level, Dahal said there is a need to review policy documents and laws and formulate model policy, establish SAARC Task Force on migration and regional standards on collecting data and a separate labor cell at the SAARC Secretariat to work for the welfare of migrant workers.

"There is a need to establish multi-lateral framework for decent work for migrant workers, development of a common position on WTO, agreement on international norms migration, equal rights and protection for the migration of both males and females at international level," he added.

Representatives of various trade unions, civil society leaders, those working in the field of safe migration argued that although Nepal is not in a position to stop labor migration right away, it is possible to reduce the social cost if the government took proactive initiatives to generate employment opportunities at home and provide necessary information and skills to migrant workers.

Published on: 22 December 2014 | Republica