ISHWAR RAUNIYAR

Plight of migrants

Recent revelations on the state of Nepali migrant workers in Qatar garnered worldwide attention. They revealed how Nepali workers are needlessly losing their lives in Qatar and are routinely exploited by their employers who burden them with extra work but offer little in return.

The news comes at a time Qatar is preparing for the 2022 football World Cup. Though the issue was not new for Nepal, the way it was reported in one of the prestigious international newspapers forced national and international officials, human rights activists and the Qatar government to take it seriously.

Now the debate is whether Qatar should host the 2022 event at all. As in Qatar, the situation of Nepalis migrant workers in Malaysia and other Gulf countries is pathetic as well. Neither the receiving countries nor the sending country has been able to properly manage migrant workers, though both are deriving huge ‘benefits’ from them.

Nepal has sent a record number of workers abroad in the past few years. On average, around 1,600 leave the country every day to work in the Gulf, Malaysia and South Korea. The money sent home by more than 2.5 million Nepali migrant workers is the largest foreign exchange earner for the country.

More than 400,000 people come into the job market every year; ninety percent of them find employment overseas. Money sent home by workers makes up a big chunk of the Nepali economy. Last year, remittances were worth roughly US $4.5 billion, almost a quarter of Nepali GDP.

Recently Maya Kumari Sharma, former ambassador to Qatar, got dismissed from her post after commenting that “Qatar is an open jail” in BBC Sajha Sawal a few months ago. Her statement invited huge controversy both in Nepal and Qatar. Since then, the Qatar government has asked her to leave the country. But Qatar is only the tip of the iceberg.

A recent report released by the Foreign Employment Promotion Board (FEPB) claims that at least 726 Nepalis migrant workers died in the East Asian and Gulf countries in the last one year. The actual numbers are likely to be higher still as these statistics discount illegal workers. In Malaysia alone, 253 Nepalis migrants died last year (officially), making it easily the deadliest destination for Nepali workers.

The Guardian reports highlight the pathetic state Nepalis workers are forced to live under in Qatar as well as their wretched work conditions. Similar is the case with Malaysia.

Studies have shown that a migrant worker is cheated an average of 16 times during his journey from his village to the foreign destination of his choice. It starts with the loan shark in the village, then it’s the turn of the manpower company to profit, all the way to the profiteers in the final destination.

One of my colleague’s brothers was asked for Rs 125,000 to go to Malaysia, though the government rate is only Rs 80,000. Looking for help, he contacted the Director-General of the Department of Foreign Employment; however, the DG failed to do anything claiming he simply didn’t have enough staff.

Later, when the Secretary at the Labor Ministry was contacted, he too expressed his helplessness. The issue was taken to the prime minister’s office. But even so, nothing could be done. You can imagine the plight of those who don’t have such robust connections.

How can common people get justice in this country? Poor migrants become the victims of this government apathy. Not only are they overcharged during the application process, but they also don’t even get the promised jobs and salaries when abroad.

In addition, recently the BBC Sajha Sawal exposed how fake medical reports are issued for migrant workers that eventually result in the loss of their lives abroad. We cannot just blame the receiving country. Things have to start changing from the labor exporting country.

However, it doesn’t mean that the receiving country is not responsible. It too should ban manpower agencies cheating the workers, and see to it that its companies are properly treating their workers. They should closely monitor the state of migrants; whether they are being paid adequately and whether the working conditions are desirable.

Mahendra Pandey, the chair of the Pravasi Nepali Coordination Committee (PNCC), a non-governmental organization working for the migrant workers, says that the migrant workers are involved in 3D jobs—Dirty, Danger and Difficult. This means high risk.

A few years ago, I had visited Malaysia to report on the state of migrant workers. I found the situation there pathetic. I encountered at least 200 Nepali migrant workers waiting to be ‘loaded’ back home by their agents. It seemed someone has unloaded them at the airport and the owner was yet to come to collect them.

They were spending painful lives on the floors of the immigration office in Kuala Lumpur. Some had been waiting for up to a month. They were sleeping on the floor without food and water. A person who I can never forget had contracted diarrhea, perhaps because he has no option to drink from the toilet tap. He was crying and saying, “If I’m not rescued within a few days, my family will have to receive my dead body.”

Amazingly, the Nepal Embassy in Malaysia had no idea about those workers being stranded at the airport. We informed the embassy. But when we were coming back to Nepal after our two-week stay in Malaysia, we met the same number of migrants at the same place.

The first impression, they say, is the last impression. My trip to Malaysia seemed to have been doomed right from the start. In my two weeks in Malaysia, I met several Nepali migrants: some of them waiting to be rescued, others hiding in jungles, still, others working in the fields to earn some money so that they could pay back their loans.

Malaysia is home to more than 600,000 Nepali migrants, of which a large number is undocumented. They are promised one ‘salary’ but once they land abroad they are paid far lesser. The suicide rate among Nepalis is also high in Malaysia. Apparently, at least 40,000 Nepalis working illegally in Malaysia are to be deported soon. The crackdown on Nepali workers has already started.

The Guardian has taken up the issue of migrant workers garnering the interest of the world, it is the right time to act for the betterment of Nepali migrants across the world.

At this point, the Nepal government has to take the initiative and come forward to better regulate labor migration. It’s not the receiving country that pays the price of the mismanagement, but sending countries like Nepal that pay with the blood of their countrymen.

The state mechanism should not just monitor the current situation but also review its policies. All the policies including the Foreign Employment Act 2064 and Foreign Employment Police 2012 provision for punishment only after mistakes have been made or fraud committed. But they are mum on the rescue of stranded migrants and productive ways of employing trained returnees. It is long past the time we seriously thought about these important issues.

The author is an in-depth reporter with BBC’s Sajha Sawal

Published on: 5 October 2013 | Republica