Insufficient information and weak information flow mechanisms have been hitting the outsourcing sector hard. Weaknesses in information flow is fuelling fraud in the sector, said rights activists. 

Fraud in the outsourcing sector has been rising in recent years. More than 2,100 outsourcing fraud cases worth about Rs 1.21 billion were reported at the department last year. The number of outsourcing fraud cases reached 943 in the first five months of current fiscal. They were worth Rs 447.96 million.

Government information on foreign employment is not reaching villages, said Right to Information activist Taranath Dahal. “The government is using traditional media and approaches to change the risk behaviour of foreign job aspirants,” he said, adding that frauds in the outsourcing sector cannot be controlled without strategic delivery of information. 

Different agencies have been disseminating information but not a single agency has revisited it. Therefore, there is a continuous flow of ineffective information to people, he said. He urged regulating agencies to revisit information and its flow and develop an efficient mechanism and approach to inform vulnerable people. 

According to him, information on the outsourcing sector must be effective and offer a counter mechanism to the false claims of agents. “It is only possible from behaviour change approach and interactive media,” Dahal suggested. “Let us revisit our information flow and correct its weaknesses.” The country needs a Citizen Information Board for research and development, he added. 

National Information Commission echoed Dahal while talking on information flow and its effectiveness in the outsourcing sector. Providing information to people living in the villages has become a challenge today. Safeguarding foreign job aspirants is directly related to it, said commissioner Sabita Bhandari Baral. 

“We must provide information to illiterate or semi-literate women in villages according to their adoption capacity,” she said while talking about safety of women migrant workers. Women are not getting the correct information from authorities and have been cheated by agents, she added.

The Department of Foreign Employment — the sole regulating agency of the outsourcing sector — has also identified the need to localise information mechanisms for greater effectiveness. “We have been disseminating information to people but we have not revisited them. There is no research on it,” said director general at the department Purnachandra Bhattarai. 

He asked media institutions and non-governmental organisations to conduct a study on information and its flow. Non-governmental organisations must also support it because we want to make information effective and localised, he added. 

The country’s economy largely depends on the outsourcing sector as it provides jobs to a work force of above 450,000 people every year, and for the remittance sent by migrant workers.

Published on: 13 January 2013 | The Himalayan Times