mikeldunham

Nepal ranks 20th in modern day slavery index

 

November 25, 2014

 

 

Nepal has been ranked 20th among 167 countries in terms of the prevalence of modern day slavery. The 2014 Global Slavery Index has estimated that 228,700 people in the country are subjected to modern day slavery.

 

The report released by Walk Free Foundation last week has also listed Nepal as the fifth most vulnerable country to modern day slavery in the Asia Pacific region. Neighbouring India ranks top most in the region followed by Pakistan, Cambodia and Mongolia.

 

In the world rankings, India and Pakistan are ranked fifth and sixth, respectively. Mauritania ranks first in the index with four percent of its almost 4 million people subjected to modern day slavery, followed by (2) Uzbekistan, (3) Haiti and (4) Qatar.

 

The report also highlights that men from Nepal along with Sri Lanka and Bangladesh working in the Middle East are in forced labor in the construction industry, while women from the same countries have been subjected to sexual exploitation and domestic violence.

 

The case study of Qatar carried out in the report also says that migrant workers from Nepal and other South Asian countries are subjected to a range of exploitative practices, including forced labor, domestic servitude, extortionate recruitment fees, illegal confiscation of passports, withholding of salaries, hazardous workplaces, unhygienic living conditions and physical, psychological and sexual abuse from employers.

 

The Australia-based organization, which works to end modern day slavery, prepares its report based on researches over a year. The report terms the modern day slavery as involvement of a person possessing or controlling another person to significantly deprive that person of their individual liberty and with the intention of exploiting that person through their use, management, profit, transfer or disposal. The report states that India also remains susceptible destination for Nepali women and children. “Young Nepali women banned from traveling to the Gulf for domestic work also pass through India as an alternative route. Some of these migrants then experience abuse and exploitation. Other migrants are fraudulently sent by recruiters to India to be transported to jobs in the Gulf, only to remain in India in positions of forced labor or commercial sexual exploitation,” the report has stated.

 

According to the report, around 38.5 million people around the world are the victims of modern day slavery.

 

To download the Report

 

CLICK HERE

 

 

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At last, a comprehensive report on Nepali Labor Migration

 

October 6, 2014

 

 

For the first time, a comprehensive analysis of Nepali labor migration and foreign employment has been assembled and published by the Asia Foundation in cooperation with the Government of Nepal, the International Labour Foundation, the International Organization for Migration and financial support from the EU. The 60-page report breaks down current trends, structural gaps, the pitfalls of recruitment agencies, and dangers faced once laborers reach overseas destinations, among other important considerations.

 

Headquartered in San Francisco, The Asia Foundation works through a network of offices in 18 Asian countries and in Washington, DC. Working with public and private partners, the Foundation receives funding from a diverse group of bilateral and multilateral development agencies, foundations, corporations, and individuals.

 

For the complete report, link here:

 

MIGRATION REPORT

 

 

Below is a sampling of the many helpful graphs within the report:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Al Jazeera’s latest report on abuse of Nepal's migrant women

 

June 2, 2014

 

Yesterday’s article written by Ramyata Limbu for Al Jazeera

 

 

Official efforts to protect the thousands of women who travel abroad in search of work may be backfiring. 

 

Kathmandu, Nepal – They trickle into the nondescript hotel room in Dhading Besi on a Saturday afternoon, articulate young college students, demure housewives in saris, unlettered farmers with weathered faces, and nursing mothers with toddlers in tow.

 

These women are prospective migrant workers who expect to find jobs as housemaids in secluded villas in the Gulf to escape extreme poverty, unemployment and debts.

 

But human rights groups believe government efforts to protect them – about 13 percent of the 1,700 Nepalese who migrate every day are women – may increase the risk they face of exploitation, physical and sexual abuse, forced labour and trafficking.

 

"Domestic workers account for an estimated 80 percent of the total number of women migrant workers," says Dr Ganesh Gurung, a migration specialist and former chair of the national network for safe migration.

 

"The majority are undocumented. It's unfortunate that government bans enforced to protect Nepali women migrant workers from exploitation and abuse have had the opposite impact."

 

Their journey often begins in the room in Dhading Besi, three hours' drive from the capital, Kathmandu, that has been transformed into a makeshift classroom.

 

They listen intently as Manju Gurung, a former migrant worker, lists the dos and don'ts of the economic migrant.

 

"Always go through formal government channels, know what's in your contract, pre-departure training and orientation are mandatory," she stresses.

 

Once a rural hamlet, Dhading Besi has been visibly transformed by the money earned by Nepalese migrants, and new buildings and shops flank the town centre.

 

Gurung, a founder member of the Pourakhi Nepal organisation established to empower women migrants, acknowledges the economic benefits of working abroad but is also aware of the stigma that attached to these women and the emotional toll migration takes on their families.

 

She told Al Jazeera, "We don't support or discourage female migrant labour. But we believe women are entitled to work and to make an informed choice."

 

Sexual services

 

Karma Lama (name changed) hails from a highland village in Nepal where three years ago, barely out of her teens, she dropped out of school to help her family scrape a meagre living on the rugged terraces.

 

She collected firewood and fodder, took animals to graze and carried out household chores while dreaming of working overseas in order to save enough to marry and settle down.

 

Encouraged by money orders sent home by her older siblings, both domestic workers in the Gulf, Karma sold wild berries to travellers to raise cash for a passport and new clothes.

 

She pestered her parents, impoverished farmers, to raise 50,000 Nepali rupees ($500) to pay an agent, a close relative, to procure a tourist visa to Dubai.

 

Despite her family’s misgivings about her age - Nepal's government prohibits women below the age of 30 from working as domestics - Karma was determined to leave.

 

A week before her departure she travelled to Kathmandu, a day's bus ride away, where basic lessons in housekeeping comprised learning to cook on a gas stove and cleaning a toilet.

 

Yet ill-prepared for household work in a foreign land and unfamiliar with the language, within weeks she had lost two successive jobs in Lebanon - before the local agent forced her to work providing sexual services to men.

 

Just a month after leaving Nepal and badly traumatised, Karma is back home, recovering in a shelter for female migrant workers in Kathmandu where she receives counselling and medication.

 

"Approximately 25 percent of women who come to us have undergone some kind of sexual abuse or trauma," says shelter supervisor Satra Kumari Gurung.

 

"They struggle to cope with what's happened. They're extremely withdrawn. Recovery is one day at a time."

 

Abuse and exploitation

 

In 2012, Nepal's government banned women under 30 from working as domestics in Gulf states amid concerns about abuse and exploitation, and in April this year stopped issuing work permits following the repatriation of three dozen women from Lebanon - which officials say is an interim measure as they look into solutions to ensure the safety of female migrant workers.

 

But rights body Amnesty International believes these policies have increased the risks women face by encouraging them to migrate through informal channels that expose them to greater exploitation.

 

"You can't stop them," says Dr Gurung. "The day of the decision women migrant workers flew for foreign destinations from the international airport. Who's keeping count of those travelling through other channels?"

 

One of those exploited women was Tula Subba, 32, who recalls how she was an easy target for unscrupulous brokers that scour Nepal's villages for unsuspecting women to lure into forced labour.

 

Displaced by the Maoist rebellion that afflicted the country from 1996–2006, Subba's family abandoned their fields and village shop in the east of the Himalayan nation for the southern plains bordering India, where work prospects were few and income limited.

 

Before long she had joined a group of girls who travelled overland to India accompanied by an agent then flew to Kuwait.

 

She spent a year with a family before returning home on the pretext of ill health - with no money and only her ticket paid for. Constant haranguing and violent outbursts by her employer took a heavy toll on her mental and physical health.

 

"I could no longer cope. I had to get out," she told Al Jazeera.

 

Faced with a similar situation, Sita Chettri (name changed), 32, slipped out of the house in Kuwait where she had been working for nine months and made her way to the Nepalese Embassy as she had been instructed in Kathmandu.

 

Within two months at a shelter supported by the Nepalese government - occupied by up to 300 women awaiting repatriation at a time - she had regained weight and recovered her spirits.

 

She abandoned any thought of finding another employer when she saw dead bodies of workers being brought to the embassy and heard the extent of abuse some women had endured.

 

"I don't want to die. I have young children," she told Al Jazeera.

 

But Chettri has mixed feelings about returning home."I’ve no money, no gifts, nothing for my young son. People are bound to talk."

 

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Real cost of Qatar World Cup: Nearly 400 Nepalese workers have died in last two years

 

January 27, 2014

 

 

The appalling mistreatment of Nepali migrant workers in Doha, Qatar -- despite reform promises from it’s government and FIFA’s “concern” -- continues, apparently unabated.

 

The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) recently predicted that up to 4000 migrant workers could die before the 2022 World Cup, if meaningful reforms are not established. According to their documents the total number of verified deaths among workers from Nepal – just one of several countries that supply hundreds of thousands of migrant workers to the gas-rich state – is now at least 382 in two years alone. At least 36 of those deaths were registered in the weeks following the global outcry over migrant worker abuse in Qatar, revealed by the Guardian in September 2013.

 

 

 

 

The revelations forced FIFA's president, Sepp Blatter – continually dogged by allegations of corruption – to promise that football would not turn a blind eye to the issue following a stormy executive committee meeting. To date, his promise had produced no results.

 

Because of political instability, high unemployment rate and other issues, over 450,000 Nepalis annually migrate to foreign countries. Nearly 1500 people leave the country for foreign employment every day.

 

Nepalis make up about a sixth of Qatar's 2 million-strong population of migrant workers. Verified figures for the 2013 death rates among those from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and elsewhere have yet to emerge.

 

 

For video   CLICK HERE   Warning: graphic material. 

 

The Nepali organization working with the families of dead workers to repatriate their bodies and campaign for adequate compensation from the companies that employed them under the kafala sponsorship system said on Friday that Fifa should do more.

 

The Pravasi Nepali Co-ordination Committee (PNCC), which has cross-checked the figures from official sources in Doha against death certificates and passports, is still receiving new cases on a regular basis. The Guardian has seen evidence of at least a further eight cases, which would take the 2013 total to 193.

 

The PNCC called on Fifa's sponsors to reconsider their relationship with world football's governing body, which awarded the World Cup to Qatar in December 2010.

 

"Fifa and the government of Qatar promised the world that they would take action to ensure the safety of workers building the stadiums and infrastructure for the 2022 World Cup. This horrendous roll call of the dead gives the lie to those reassurances," said the PNCC. "These were young or otherwise able-bodied men, with their futures in front of them, families at home and everything to live for. Many have been literally worked to death. Some have met with even more sinister ends. All have been betrayed by Fifa."

 

 

 

The Guardian investigation last year revealed that at least 44 Nepalese workers had died in Qatar between 4 June and 8 August, more than half of them of heart attacks, heart failure or workplace accidents. But the full list of deaths recorded during the year, collated by the Nepalese NGO from official sources and documents in Doha and seen by the Guardian, shows that the actual figure is much higher.

 

In June, July and August alone 65 deaths were recorded by the PNCC during summer months when temperatures can regularly top 40C. The causes included traffic accidents, blunt injuries and fractures ascribed to falls and suicide. But more than 65 of the deaths in 2013 are ascribed to "sudden cardiac arrests" and more than half to some kind of heart failure. Campaigners believe the cause of death is often officially listed as a cardiac arrest because it covers a "multitude of sins".

 

Asked last year by the Guardian why so many young Nepalese men died of heart attacks, the Qatari labour ministry said: "This question would be better suited for the relevant health authorities or the government of Nepal."

 

 

As long ago as 2011, Fifa said it would work with the International Trade Union Confederation to address labour issues with the Qatari authorities. "We have a responsibility that goes beyond the development of football and the organisation of our competition," Fifa secretary general Jérôme Valcke said in November 2011.

 

But the ITUC has remained a strident critic of the lack of progress made by Qatari authorities on the issue, while groups including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have continued to highlight the appalling conditions suffered by some of the workers in a £137bn construction boom.

 

In November, Amnesty warned in a damning report that workers were enduring 12-hour days in sweltering conditions and living in squalid, overcrowded accommodation. The ITUC has warned that up to 4,000 workers may die before a ball is kicked in 2022 without meaningful reform of the kafala system and stringent control of the myriad construction companies and sub-contractors involved.

 

After the global outcry that followed the Guardian's coverage, Blatter travelled to meet the Emir of Qatar and declared it was "on the right track" in dealing with the issue. But following a meeting with the ITUC in Zurich a month later, Fifa said that "fair working conditions with a lasting effect must be introduced quickly".

 

The PNCC, which has painstakingly cross-checked death certificates and other documentation with official records in Doha, said Fifa and the Qatari government needed to move faster: "Fifa president Sepp Blatter said in October there was 'plenty of time' to address this issue. For the labourers dying every week in Qatar to build the infrastructure to host Mr Blatter's World Cup, there is no time left."

 

 

Attention is also turning to the role of Fifa's sponsors, with the PNCC joining calls for them to review their relationship with it. Visa and Adidas recently signed new deals until 2022. "Qatar's failure to disclose or explain these deaths, and Fifa's failure to monitor them, are alarming in the extreme. We call upon the World Cup's corporate sponsors – Coca-Cola, Adidas, Visa, Hyundai and Budweiser – urgently to review their arrangements with Fifa," a spokesman said.

 

Last month the London mayor, Boris Johnson, travelled to Doha to drum up trade for British business. Foreign Office minister Hugh Robertson held talks with the Qataris aimed at boosting trade and said the UK would "offer support" in delivering the 2022 World Cup.

 

A spokesman for the Foreign Office insisted the issue of migrant workers was also raised. "Mr Robertson discussed the issue of migrant workers with the Qatari authorities during his recent visit," he said."

 

But the PNCC said that the flow of coffins returning to Kathmandu airport, which continued throughout December, even on Christmas Day, told its own story. "Thanks to the work of the Guardian and other media, this abuse is finally being exposed," said the PNCC spokesman.

 

"We call upon civilised governments as a matter of the greatest urgency to demand that Qatar takes meaningful action to protect foreign workers on its soil – including reform of the kafala system of labour, which encourages employers to treat their workers as property rather than human beings."

 

The full list of deaths recorded between January and September 2012, also seen by the Guardian, shows that at least 127 Nepalese nationals died during that period and there are believed to have been at least another 70 fatalities during the final three months of that year.

 

 

 

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Social Media Kicks in: Nepali Released From Qatar Prison

 

May 14, 2013

 

According to an article published this morning by Smriti Rai, Dorje Gurung, who had been imprisoned in Qatar last week on anti-Islam charges, was released yesterday. 

 

CLICK HERE to read my article about Gurung's arrest

 

 

This is welcome news but what is interesting is the part the Internet has played in securing his timely release. Thousands of people signed a petition at change.org. Thousands more participated in Facebook and Twitter pages created specifically for demanding Gurung’s release. This exemplifies the extent to which social media has been understood and embraced by the younger generation of Nepalis. It’s a very good sign indeed. And the older politicians of Nepal, who fight among themselves at the expense of Nepal’s well being -- while making sure that the younger set remains on the sidelines -- should take heed. The old patriarchal hold on Nepali hierarchy is actively being challenged and compromised by 21^st century dynamics.

 

 

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Nepali teacher jailed in Qatar on charges of insulting Islam

 

May 11, 2013

 

Dorje Gurung, a chemistry teacher from Pokhara, who taught chemistry at Qatar Academy in Doha, has been jailed on felony charges for insulting Islam. If convicted, he could face up to seven years in prison, according to Doha News.

 

An online campaign is underway seeking his release. (See link below.)

 

Gurung was fired from Qatar Academy after arguments with students on April 22 and 23. Although he was set to leave the country, he was summoned by the police and has been jailed since last Wednesday, according to The Himalayan Times. Gurung was accused of comparing all Muslims to terrorists. But two of his friends shared Gurung’s version with Doha News:

 

On Monday, April 22, Gurung said he had a sit-down chat with three 12-year-old boys who were making fun of him. Among other things, the seventh graders poked fun at his appearance, calling him “Jackie Chan,” a famous Chinese actor. On Tuesday, April 23, the mocking again began in earnest while Gurung was in line for lunch. At first, he said the teasing was light-hearted, but then one student put his hand on Gurung’s shoulder and a finger in his nose. At this point, Gurung grew agitated and said remarks to the effect of, how would you like to be stereotyped i.e. called a terrorist?

 

Gurung has no legal representation, but the Nepali embassy is seeking permission from the Kathmandu government to meet with Gurung, Doha News reports. Without a lawyer, Gurung’s friends fear he would not get a fair trial. The court would rely on the complaints from Qatar Academy’s students, they said.

 

News of the charges spread quickly to Nepal, where Gurung attended the prestigious St. Xavier’s School and later won scholarships to study in Italy and the United States. In all, Gurung has spent 24 years abroad pursuing higher studies and teaching in over ten countires.

 

Friends say Gurung’s words were taken out of context. “Because of his education, his travels and the worldly students he teaches, one can say that he is one of the most cosmopolitan, open-minded and fair persons,” Ashutosh Tiwari, who attended school with Gurung and works on water issues in Nepal, said in an e-mail. “He is a kind, gentle person who loves nothing more than teaching chemistry to students and getting them excited about science.”

 

Gurung maintains his own Web site, where he blogs about chemistry, his classes and the state of education in Nepal.

 

Gurung’s friends say he was planning to return to Nepal to start a school for neglected Nepali children. “He is very much in touch with where he came from and how he made his life better despite all odds of being born in a low socio-economic family, ” Jay Shrestha, who said Gurung was his best friend while attending St. Xavier’s in Kathmandu, said in an e-mail.

 

Religion is a sensitive issue in Qatar. The U.S. State Department notes and recommends that “discussing religious issues, or answering questions about a religion, should be treated with care and sensitivity.”

 

The country also strictly controls freedom of expression, especially when it comes to the leadership. Earlier this year, Qatar jailed a poet for allegedly attempting to overthrow the government, after finding a YouTube video of him reciting a poem criticizing Qatar’s ruler, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani.

 

Friends from his schooldays at St. Xavier’s School have started a Facebook page called “Free Dorje Gurung” to drum up support for his release. They hope to exert pressure on Nepal’s foreign affairs ministry to take up the matter with the Qatar government.

 

Here’s how you can help:

 

 

FREE DORJE GURUNG--CLICK HERE

 

 

 

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New electronic data diminishes the dangers for Nepalis working overseas

 

February 7, 2012

 

Today, Republica published an article on recent applications of digital information-sharing, which should help to safeguard Nepal’s foreign workers. The Department of Foreign Employment’s (DoFE) website should be carefully studied by any man or women weighing the option of pursuing overseas jobs.

 

 Labor migration going digital           

By PRABHAKAR GHIMIRE

 

The days of job seekers wandering from place to place for information about foreign job opportunities are to end soon. The chaos resulting from fake documentation has been reduced significantly.

 

Foreign employment-related information exchange among offices concerned and Nepali missions abroad has strengthened over the year. These are some of the achievements realized through increasing use of Information Technology (IT) in regulating Nepal’s ill-managed labor migration abroad.

 

With the help of the official website of the Department of Foreign Employment (DoFE)—www.dofe.gov.np, any job aspirant can get detailed information about job opportunities in a destination country, the category of workers demanded, the manpower agencies brokering the jobs, demand letters from employers, and other matters.

 

Fake documentation--- a key factor behind different problems facing Nepali workers abroad---has been greatly discouraged through introduction of IT in the foreign employment process.

 

Experience of more than two decades shows that fake documents are behind most of the problems facing Nepali migrant workers. Past efforts to curb cheating by employers and manpower agents could not minimize the problem until quite recently. With the use of IT at DoFE, the cases of submission of fake foreign employment-related documents by recruiting agencies here and abroad have come down. DoFE has introduced IT-based electronics in the verification and archiving of documents and in controlling irregularities in foreign employment.

 

Enhanced Migrant Worker Information Management System (E-MWIMS) is used to store, preserve and retrieve information about workers who have left for foreign jobs with government permission.

 

“We have kept electronic records at E-MWIMS on over two million workers who have left for overseas and this enables us to easily access particulars about any worker. This system has proved to be especially useful for accessing information on those who want to re-enter the foreign labor market after returning home,” said Purna Chandra Bhattarai, director general of DoFE. With E-MWIMS, renewal of labor permission for those wishing to re-enter the foreign labor market is easier.

 

Electronic data has been shared among key agencies involved in regulating foreign employment, such as DoFE, the Tribuvan International Airport Labor Desk and Nepali missions abroad.

 

“We have provided an Access Code to Nepali missions abroad to enable them to access information about any Nepali migrant immediately. The government can coordinate with Nepali embassies abroad to deal with any problems facing workers,” said Bhattarai.

 

Nepali embassies in India, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Qatar, the UAE and Kuwait have been lined with the Access Code since the last three months.

 

To deal with the practice of using fake stickers for labor permission, the government went automatic three weeks back, introducing a digital sticker system integrated with a Quick Response (QR) Bar Code. “We can immediately verify the sticker’s authenticity with a testing machine that reads the Bar Code. We have initiated the system to verify stickers for jobs under institutional channels,” Bhattarai said. The bar code in the sticker can display photos and information of up to 1,800 characters.

 

To make transactions transparent, CCTV monitoring and recording at eight points at DoFE was initiated a year and half back. Bank vouchers have also been integrated with E-MWIMS.

 

Long term vision

 

DoFE is planning a Personalized Web Application to establish a daily record of workers leaving for foreign employment. Web Application will be automatized and linked with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) and DoFE.

 

DoFe is also planning to enable recruiting agencies to enter data themselves and link DoFE with health institutions issuing medical reports, insurance companies and foreign employment orientation centers.

 

 

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Ignoring Nepal’s agriculture at what price to the Nepali people? Bleak Predictions

 

January 26, 2013

 

IRIN, the news and analysis service of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, just released this assessment of the decline of agriculture investments in Nepal and its profound future impact on all Nepalis.

 

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Agriculture in Nepal suffers from years of under-investment, limited research, and scant inputs, technology and services for farmers. Unless things change, Nepal may fall into deeper food insecurity and poverty, say analysts.

 

“Declining resource allocation to agriculture research and development will have direct implications on attaining the objective of poverty reduction, despite investment made on infrastructure,” noted a December 2012 paper by the US-headquartered International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).

 

While most development plans give high priority to agriculture - which contributes 35 percent to GDP - government investment in the Ministry of Agricultural Development (MOAD) - has declined from 3.7 percent of all government spending 10 years ago to 2.6 percent this year. Meanwhile, overall government spending has doubled since 2006.

 

While MOAD saw a slight increase in government and donor funding following the 2008 global and national food crisis, its budget dropped this year by 27 percent to US$105 million compared to last year due to political squabbling that delayed agreement on an overall government budget. A partial no-growth budget to continue only ongoing programmes was agreed last November, four months late.

 

All this has meant a steeper slide into poverty for 66 percent of people nationwide who survive through agriculture.

 

The average farm size shrunk 36 percent from 1.1 hectares in 1995 to 0.7 hectares in 2010, often too small to generate income above the poverty line. “Despite overall reduction in poverty levels in the country, poverty for those self-employed in agriculture increased by 10 percentage points,” reported IFPRI.

 

“When investment is low, we cannot have new technology and programmes to generate employment and grow effectively,” explained Devendra Gauchan, agriculture economist and chief of the Socioeconomics and Agri-research Policy Division at the governmental Nepal Agricultural Research Council (NARC).

 

 

Extension services

 

Extension services are strained due to lack of staffing and funding. MOAD’s Department of Agriculture has 378 extension offices nationwide. Every agriculture outreach station serves more than 11,000 farmers; one technician is responsible for an average 1,500 farmers. In developed countries, the average is one per 400.

 

“We have not been able to provide farmers with the services they need,” said Yagya Raj Joshi, senior agriculture development officer at the Doti District Agriculture Development Office in the country’s Far West Region, known for its rough, mountainous terrain.

 

He heads a team of 30 staff, responsible for a population of 200,000 - 80 percent of whom are farmers, and 60 percent of whom still depend on increasingly erratic weather for their water.

 

“Our work is only small-scale,” he told IRIN, that there was no technology to transfer even if there were enough qualified experts to do it.

 

Most of MOAD’s budget goes on salaries and administrative costs; there is limited money for programming, said Prabhakar Pathak, joint-secretary and spokesperson at MOAD’s Gender Equity and Environment Division.

 

Compounding farmers’ woes, the current extension service model requires they go to district centres and sub-centres for assistance, leaving growers in remote areas most in need of support going without it, says IFPRI. “On average, rural households require more than two hours to reach their nearest markets or government service centres because of difficult terrain and a lack of transport infrastructure.”

 

 

Research

 

Minimal investment in research has hampered efforts to meet the challenges of increasingly volatile weather, said Gauchan, especially given Nepal’s agro-ecological diversity.

 

Less than 0.4 percent of the agriculture sector’s GDP is spent on research, far short of the internationally recommended 1 percent. NARC received US$11 million this year, 22 percent less than last year. Only 32 percent of the $11 million was for research. In tight times, money for equipment and maintenance of research labs and farms goes first, which has long-term repercussions, said Hari Krishna Shrestha, an agricultural economist at NARC.

 

Funding cuts disrupt the breeding, production and distribution of new, improved seeds to farmers, and prevents timely response to emerging pests.

 

Meanwhile, NARC’s staff numbers are declining. More than 40 percent of the scientists are nearing retirement age, while 32 percent of posts are vacant due to recruitment problems. It is especially difficult to find masters-level entomology, pathology, soil and other hard-science graduates, said NARC’s Gauchan.

 

 

Agriculture and animal sciences are niche studies, drawing in only 0.3 percent of higher education enrolment in 2009-10. “Young graduates are not attracted to public sector scientific organizations,” he added.

 

 

Loans hard to come by

 

Inputs needed to increase the land’s productivity - from seed, to fertilizer, machinery, irrigation, and finance - are scarce nationwide.

 

“Farmers hardly get compensation when their crops fail,” said Radha Nepal, a farmer and chairwoman of a maize seed production cooperative in Kashyauli village of south-central Palpa District. “And it is difficult for us to get loans, especially since most of our land is not held in the name of women, and our men have gone abroad.”

 

The government’s 2012 Agriculture Development Strategy Assessment Report estimated 200,000 youth, especially from rural areas, migrated abroad for employment in 2010, leaving mostly women, children and the elderly behind. Female-headed agricultural households have increased from 12 percent in 1995 to 26 percent in 2010. Yet only 18 percent of women in rural households own houses or land, according to the 2011 census.

 

 

In the last decade, the largely government-owned Agriculture Development Bank Limited has moved away from being a primary lender in agriculture, towards housing, vehicles, and commercial development.

 

In a 2010 analysis, Gauchan found the share of credit provided to agriculture was only 11 percent of the bank’s total lending portfolio due to the perceived high risk of investing in subsistence agriculture.

 

Some 54 percent of cultivated land in Nepal is irrigated, only 7 percent of households own a pump (not taking into account whether or not that pump actually works), and a mere 1 percent own tractors, power tillers, or threshers. The state-owned Agriculture Inputs Company Limited estimates fertilizer demand to be 500,000 tons, of which only 150,000 was supplied last year.

 

“On land where we could cultivate three harvests’ worth, we have to settle with only one,” said farmer Radha Nepal. “In the past, we had neither the technology nor the knowledge, now we have them, but we don’t have access to them.”

 

Bleak future?

 

MOAD spokesperson Pathak projected a bleak future unless things change: “The agricultural growth rate will decline. The contribution of agriculture to the GDP will decrease. There won’t be food and nutrition security. Agriculture job employment will decline. Youths will be less involved in agriculture, and the speed of income going abroad will increase.”

 

Some of those changes have already taken root. “Nobody wants to stay in agriculture,” said Sabnam Shivakoti Aryal, a senior agriculture officer at MOAD who is helping prepare a new long-term Agriculture Development Strategy (ADS), which will outline a 20-year vision and 10-year plan for Nepal.

 

“People are leaving land fallow where crops worth gold and silver can grow, to work as labourers making 10,000 to 12,000 rupees [$115-$139] a month,” said Joshi, the agriculture development officer in the Far West Region.

 

“If agriculture investment continues to be low, our poverty reduction efforts, and Millennium Development Goal (MDG) targets may not be possible,” added Gauchan. Nepal’s latest MDG progress report found that rural poverty - 28.5 percent - was four times higher than urban poverty - 7.6 percent. The overall MDG 2015 target for poverty is 21 percent.

 

Many in the government have set their hopes on the forthcoming ADS, with its promise of “sustainable growth in value in an agriculture sector that is more resilient to climate change”. A draft version is expected by March 2013.

 

Surya Prasad Paudel, a senior livestock development officer at MOAD who is also working on the ADS, listed a few of its preliminary proposals: increasing the share of the national budget that goes to agriculture; increasing the number of extension offices to nearly 900; and gradually committing up to 2 percent of agriculture-generated GDP to research. “If we invest in agriculture today, we will see the impact in 5-10 years’ time,” said Paudel.

 

The government approved in January 2013 four donor-funded agriculture projects worth $134 million (to which the state is contributing $32.5 million).

 

But Joshi is not optimistic. “I don’t trust them. So many strategies like the ADS have been developed,” he said, citing the last Agriculture Perspective Plan (APP) (1995-2015), which has seen many of its targets unmet. “I have been hearing that agriculture is the government’s priority since I was a child.”

 

 

 

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Remittance rises significantly in Nepal

 

November 30, 2012

 

According to the latest issue of World Bank’s Migration and Development Brief, in 2011 Nepal was one of the highest receivers of remittance on the basis of percent to gross domestic product (GDP).

 

The large remittance recipient countries as a share of GDP include Tajikistan (47 per cent), Liberia (31 per cent), Kyrgyz Republic (29 per cent) Lesotho (27 per cent), Moldova (23 per cent), Nepal (22 per cent), Samoa (21 per cent) and Tonga (20 per cent) in 2012.

 

Though the top recipients of officially recorded remittance in 2011 were India ($64 billion), China ($62 billion), Mexico ($24 billion), and the Philippines ($23 billion), remittance sent home by migrants to developing countries (such as Nepal) are three times the size of official development assistance and can have profound implications for development and human welfare, it added.

 

Despite the current global economic weakness, remittance flows are expected to continue growing, with global remittance expected to reach $615 billion by 2014, of which $467 billion will flow to developing countries. Although remittance costs have fallen steadily in recent years, they still remain high in small nations where remittance provides a lifeline to the poor.

 

South Asia comes second to Sub-Saharan Africa in the cost of sending money that is one of the obstacles to growth of remittance flows, it said. “The cost of sending remittance is a key driver of remittance flows.”

 

Cost of sending remittance to South Asia stood at 6.5 per cent — in the third quarter of 2012 — though average cost masks variation across countries, it said, adding that Sub-Saharan Africa is the most expensive region to send remittance to, with a transfer costing about 12.4 per cent of the amount transferred.

 

Russia is, by far, the cheapest source country with a weighted average remittance cost of two per cent.

 

Likewise, in many large remittance source countries like Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), US and UK, the average cost is around five per cent. By contrast, Japan ranks among the highest cost corridors. As of the third quarter of 2012, the weighted average cost of sending remittance from Japan to its five top remittance receiving countries was about 17 per cent of the remittance amount.

 

Similarly, Germany is the next most expensive country, among the top remittance source countries, with the transfer costs consuming, on average, about 14 per cent of the remittance amount.

 

Likewise, the report noted that regions and countries with large numbers of migrants in oil exporting countries continue to see robust growth in inward remittance flows, compared with those whose migrant workers are largely concentrated in the advanced economies, especially Western Europe.

 

Thus, South Asia, MENA and East Asia and Pacific regions, with large numbers of workers in GCC countries, are seeing better-than-expected growth in remittance.

 

For South Asia, remittance in 2012 is expected to total $109 billion, an increase of 12.5 per cent over 2011. Remittance to developing countries is estimated to have reached $372 billion in 2011, an increase of 12 per cent over the previous year. Global remittance flows, including those to high-income countries, were an estimated $501 billion in 2011.

 

For more information on Nepal Remittance and related issues click on my blog catagory " Nepal's Migrant Workers Issues" in lefthand column.

 

 

 

WORLD BANK has also issued a new book, “Migration and Remittances during the Global Financial Crisis and Beyond,” edited by World Bank Economist Dilip Ratha, Ohio State Anthropology Professor Jeffrey H. Cohen, and Ibrahim Sirkeci, professor of transnational studies and marketing at Regent’s College in London. The study seeks to answer how the hundreds of million people working abroad have been affected by the 2008 global economic crisis. The book’s 32 chapters were selected from 300 submissions that flowed in from all over the world in response to a call for proposals on the Bank’s People Move blog. The papers feature economic models and stats—and also regions, peoples, and the humanitarian side of migration.  Dilip Ratha, who manages the Bank’s Migration and Remittances Unit, lends insight into the issue in an interview with Donna Barne for World Bank:

 

What happened to remittances during the crisis?

 

RATHA: There was widespread worry in 2008-09 that remittances would fall. They dipped 5% in 2009—the only global decline in memory—and recovered in 2010 to above 2008 levels. In the past, we had seen remittances go up in response to a crisis in the home country. What was not documented was how remittances would behave when a source country was in crisis. The remarkable finding was that remittances do slow down during a crisis in a source country, but they’re much less affected than declines at the same time of foreign direct investment or private portfolio flows. Even aid flows are very susceptible to crisis and fiscal tightening in developed countries. But remittances are much less so.

 

Why this resilience?

 

RATHA: We’re talking about migrants who are very connected to their families. Indeed, the reason people moved in the first place was to send money home. The ties are so strong that they try their best to continue even when they face hardships in their destination country. That willingness is also matched by ability to remit in the face of falling incomes because remittances tend to be only a small part of the migrant’s income. Because of that, one could cushion the fall by cutting consumption and sharing accommodations with others in order to send money home.

 

The more diversified the geographic destinations of a country’s migrants, the more resilient remittance inflows. Migrants from South Asian countries—India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Philippines—are all over the place: in the U.S., Europe, the Gulf countries, the Middle East, in large numbers. And because the economic cycles of these countries are not synchronized, the diversification of migrant destinations helped cushion the flow of remittances. Despite the crisis, remittances to Bangladesh and Pakistan were growing at double-digit rates. That was remarkable.

 

Finally, when there is a small depreciation of the currency—because crisis is often accompanied by changes in exchange rates—the same amount of remittances in local currency terms could be maintained with fewer dollar remittances. We found, however, that when there was double-digit depreciation of the currency, remittances surge. That is because goods and assets—particularly real estate—back home suddenly become cheaper by 20% or 30% in foreign currency terms. So there is a surge of remittances, but this time motivated for investment purposes.

 

What about reports that migration is slowing, especially from Mexico to the United States?

 

RATHA: Immigration controls tightened in the U.S. and Europe—indeed all over the world to protect jobs for natives, or rather to be seen as protecting jobs for natives.  It’s true tighter immigration controls have meant lower flow of new migrant workers. In the case of Mexico, new migration was supposed to have fallen significantly. Initially it was a 40% fall, then around a 60% fall, and more recently we have heard new migration flows are almost 0 from Mexico to the U.S. But net migration never became negative, because people already in the US did not go back to Mexico as they used to go back before the crisis, for fear of not being able to come back. That was an unexpected finding from the crisis experience.

 

What about migration within countries?

 

RATHA: Domestic migration is estimated at around 700 million people—compared with estimates of international migration at 215 million. So domestic migration is a much bigger phenomenon, and its impact on sheer, abject poverty is probably much larger. That is because the poorest of the poor are only able to migrate domestically. They migrate from rural areas to towns and cities to find jobs. This is expected as countries grow and agriculture becomes less dominant in the economy.  Economic development and urbanization go together and that inevitably leads to rural-urban migration.

 

What is happening now?

 

This year international remittances are expected to touch $400 billion, up from $372 billion in 2011.

 

One of the most surprising findings of the last few months is a doubling in remittances to Egypt in the last couple of years. Remittances earlier were just barely larger than the revenue from the Suez Canal. Now they are nearly double. And that happens at a time of crisis there. One part of the story is the desire of people to help families back home, but that desire was there before and we haven’t heard of large-scale out-migration from Egypt. It seems likely there is more money going into Egypt as remittances because asset prices have fallen significantly.

 

Pakistan is expected to receive more than $14 billion in remittances this year, about the same size as the country’s foreign exchange reserves. But remittances are typically grossly underestimated in Pakistan. A more recent estimate is $20 billion.

 

Remittances to India were about $64 billion last year. There is a reversal of capital flows more recently to India—international reserves have fallen by over $20 billion in the last few months. At this time, remittances are rushing into the country, indeed because of the weakening rupee that makes Indian assets attractive to non-residents. Remittances to India are expected to rise further in 2012.

 

Tajikistan is a special case. According to official estimates, it has the highest ratio of remittances to GDP – close to 35%. Unofficial estimates suggest the ratio is more like 50%. Most of these remittances are from Russia and clearly provide a lifeline to that economy.

 

There are similar examples all over the world. Even in countries like Mexico, where remittances are in the $25 billion range, they are larger than FDI.

 

 

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Trafficking victims from Nepal rescued in Haiti by Nepali UN peacekeepers

 

October 26, 2012

 

Two Nepalese men were rescued from prison-like conditions in Haiti after 11 months at the mercy of human traffickers who had promised them jobs in the United States, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) reported October 24, 2012.

 

The men, in their 30s, had been recruited in their native Nepal by a human smuggling network that had charged them an unspecified fee in exchange for legal immigration and work in the US, Jumbe Omari Jumbe, a spokesman for the Geneva-based organization told reporters.

 

Since starting their journey last November, the men had been shuttled through Singapore, China, Brazil, Panama and finally on to Haiti — supposedly their last stop before reaching the US — and had been provided official visas for each country they stopped in.

 

“It reads like a detective story,” Jumbe said, pointing out that the smugglers must have had a massive network since they “actually obtained visas from all these countries. They must have paid thousands of dollars.” 

 

Although the two men had been willingly smuggled initially, they became trafficking victims when they arrived in Haiti in January this year and were taken to a private home in the northern city of Cap Haitien.

 

“They were kept as virtual prisoners with little food and dirty drinking water,” Jumbe said, adding that the family had confiscated their passports, threatened them and demanded money.

 

But when their captors told them to call their families and ask for more cash, the men described to their loved-ones, in Nepalese, details of landmarks they had passed when they were being transported to the house.

 

Their relatives then contacted Nepalese police, who in turn alerted police units forming part of the UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti, which organized a rescue mission.

 

“It was very hard finding the area, because these men were in prison. They didn’t see where they were. But finally through hard work they found them and they were rescued,” Jumbe said.

 

IOM, which has helped some 2,000 human trafficking victims since it began working on the issue in 1994, transported the two men back to Nepal, he said.

 

“This case confirms that Haiti is a country of origin, transit and destination for human trafficking and migrant smuggling,” IOM’s mission chief in Haiti, Gregoire Goodstein, said in a statement.

 

“The criminal networks at work in Haiti are national and international,” he added.

 

Most trafficking victims in Haiti are Haitian children who are exploited as cheap or free labor, according to IOM, pointing to the so-called “restavek” (from the French ‘reste avec’, meaning stays with) system that dates back at least two centuries.

 

According to that system, children from very poor rural areas are “entrusted” to families in urban areas who are supposed to provide for their needs, including education, in exchange for their work.

 

But, IOM said, “the vast majority of restaveks end up exploited and abused.”

 

 

YOU CAN HELP:! JOIN AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL’S TAKE ACTION PROGRAM:

 

CLICK HERE

 

 

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Human Rights Watch says Nepal’s ban on women working in Gulf States Wrong-Headed

 

August 16, 2012

 

On August 9, Nepal’s cabinet banned women under the age of 30 from working in Arab Gulf countries as a solution to the ongoing sexual and physical abuse of young women trapped in those states.

 

But two days ago, Human Rights Watch (HRW) issued a statement strongly advocating that the new ban should be revoked. Instead, the Nepali government should concentrate on improving “protections, so that domestic workers can migrate safely – such as by ensuring full monitoring and accountability of recruitment agencies in Nepal.”

 

At the same time, HRW said that governments in the Gulf should adopt long overdue labor protections and immigration reforms, including ending the discriminatory treatment of domestic workers, to combat the abuse of Nepali and other migrant workers.

 

The ban is a response to several publicized cases of abuse of Nepali domestic workers, including long work hours, unpaid wages, and in some cases physical or sexual abuse.

 

See my related article of Oct. 14, 2011, Nepal will allow 150,000 women to work and once again face the dangers of becoming maids in Gulf States:

 

Nepali Women in Gulf States

 

"Nepal is right to be concerned about its migrant domestic workers, but imposing a ban on women under 30 from traveling to the Gulf does not solve the problem and discriminates against young women", said Nisha Varia, senior women's rights researcher at Human Rights Watch.

 

"A better strategy would be to crack down on abusive recruitment practices, ensure that women migrate with an enforceable contract in hand, and equip embassies to respond quickly to complaints of abuse."

 

Official Nepali emigration figures state that as many as 1,000 migrants pass daily through Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu; many others leave by land through the porous Indian border.

 

Many domestic workers have positive experiences and together send home billions of dollars in remittances each year to Asia. Others face abuse.

 

Human Rights Watch has documented discrimination and abuse against Asian domestic workers in the Middle East for several years.

 

Labor laws in the Gulf exclude domestic workers from basic protections guaranteed other workers such as a weekly rest day, limits to hours of work, and compensation in case of work-related injury.

Restrictive immigration rules make it difficult for domestic workers to escape from abusive employers.

 

A ban on the work in the Gulf may drive women desperate for work to migrate through irregular channels, putting them at greater risk of exploitation and trafficking, Human Rights Watch said.

 

Human Rights Watch interviewed Nepali domestic workers in Saudi Arabia during the previous ban and found that they were especially likely to encounter abuse.

 

They had no information about their rights, no employment contracts, and were more likely to migrate with illegal recruiters who left them heavily indebted.

 

If they faced abuse from their employers, their precarious legal status made it more difficult for them to approach or receive assistance from authorities.

 

Instead of a blanket ban on young women that denies them important employment opportunities, Nepal's government should work with other labor-sending governments to demand stronger protections for migrant workers in the Gulf, Human Rights Watch said.

 

It urged the Nepali Government to improve training of migrant workers, to monitor recruitment agencies rigorously, and to ensure migrant women know where to get help if they need it.

 

"Governments in the Gulf should heed the concern about abuse against domestic workers in their countries," said Varia. "They should move quickly to include domestic workers in labor laws, prosecute abusive employers, and improve cooperation with labor-sending countries."

 

Nepal has obligations under its interim constitution and international law to protect women from discrimination, including in employment.

 

The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, which Nepal ratified in 1991, requires states to eliminate discrimination against women in the field of employment.

 

Human Rights Watch also called on the Nepali government to ratify the International Labor Organization Convention on Decent Work for Domestic Workers.

 

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American Himalayan Foundation’s ongoing fight against girl trafficking in Nepal

 

April 21, 2012 

On April 30, 2012, the American Himalayan Foundation is hosting a benefit for its STOP Girl Trafficking initiative in Nepal, which was launched in 1997. To date, the program has helped prevent nearly 10,000 girls in the Himalayan region from falling into the common trap of becoming sex-trafficking victims.

Unlike other organizations that provide upfront assistance and then move on, STOP Girl Trafficking (SGT) and the American Himalayan Foundation are committed to rescuing at-risk girls in Nepal from the threat of trafficking by keeping them in school and, even more unique, supporting each girl through graduation and beyond.

According to a report issued in 2009 by the U.S. Department of State, more than 22,000 Nepali women and girls – the majority ranging in age from 12 to 18 – are trafficked annually. Forced prostitution and constant physical abuse – not to mention a high probability of contracting HIV – awaits them.

SGT began with 54 girls in 1997, when it traveled to remote villages to encourage girls to remain in school and to educate girls and their mothers on the dangers of sex trafficking. Since then, SGT has established programs at 400 government schools in districts plagued by some of Nepal’s highest rates of trafficking. Presently over 9000 girls are safely attending school thanks to the efforts of Dr. Aruna Uprety, the Nepali physician and activist who initiated the program, in partnership with the American Himalayan Foundation. The graduation rate for SGT scholars is 82%. Fewer than 2% have dropped out of the program.

Clearly, this is an initiative that is time-proven and well worth Westerners’ support.

 

 

 

 

BENEFIT DETAILS

The upcoming event, to be held in San Francisco at The Four Seasons, will include the attendance of several notable activists working in cooperation with the American Himalayan Foundation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Siddharth Kara is an author and one of the world's foremost experts on modern day slavery and human trafficking. He is the first Fellow on Human Trafficking with the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and a Visiting Scientist on Forced Labor at the Harvard School of Public Health. He is best known for his award-winning book, Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery (2009). His next book, Bonded Labor: Tackling the System of Slavery in South Asia is scheduled for release in 2012.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dr. Aruna Uprety, who created STOP Girl Trafficking, has a deep understanding of women’s issues in South Asia. In addition to her work with the American Himalayan Foundation, she founded Rural Health and Education Trust in 1995 and has lived and worked with Afghan women in Kabul in the aftermath of the US-led war against the Taliban. She has researched and published numerous articles on HIV/AIDS, STD, Sex Workers, Abortion, Maternal Health, Health Workers, Law, and Rural Women.

Her research includes: Baseline Study of Simulated STD Patients & Chemists in the Land Transportation Routes, Baseline Survey of Commercial Sex Workers & Clients, A Situation Analysis of Regional & Zonal Hospitals in Management of Family Planning and Post Abortion Related Complications. Her published works include: Your Health Is In Your Hands: A health guide for Women, Where Women Have No Doctor, Beijing Platform For Action, Women’s Health in Nepal: A situational analysis.

Dr. Uprety is also the author of a monthly column on various topics on women’s health and rights, including prolapsed uterus, anemia, gender, AIDS, family planning, trafficking, child health, and nutrition and has worked on Asmita, AIDS, an information booklet for the barely literate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jon Krakauer, is the American writer and mountaineer, primarily known for his writing about the outdoors and mountain climbing. He is the author of best-selling the non-fiction books Into the Wild, Into Thin Air, Under the Banner of Heaven, and Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman

 

 

 

For information and reservations to the April 30^th event:

 

American Himalayan Foundation Events

 

or call:

 

415-288 7250

 

 

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Nepal’s Prime Minister Bhattarai sacks Labor and Transport Management Minister Sarita Giri for corruption involving the welfare of migrant workers

 

March 24, 2012

 

Sarita Giri was fired from her ministry post on Friday. The Prime Minister's decision came after Ms. Giri's defiance of directives to usher in reforms in foreign employment and taking tough action against manpower companies involved in duping migrant workers.

In a bid to curb malpractices and misinformation by the mushrooming manpower agencies, the Prime Minister's office had ordered the Labor and Transport Management Ministry to meet foreign companies' demands for manpower only after getting a clearance from Nepal's missions based in the home countries of these companies. Apparently, this was something Ms. Giri couldn’t bring herself to do.

Al Jazeera's footage of Nepali Children sold to Indian Circuses

 

September 12, 2011 

Click on image below for film:

 

 

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Missing Persons: Nepali migrant workers caught in the chaos of Gulf & African countries

 

March 31, 2011

Nepali migrant workers should familiarize themselves with an organization based in Qatar call Migrant Rights Organization. Its website is dedicated to raising awareness of the plight of migrant/expatriate workers in the Middle East.

The website includes latest news and videos of migrant-labor-related situations, as well as a breakdown of working conditions of countries in the Gulf and Northern Africa.

It is excellent source material for lists of abusive employers, recruitment agencies, deaths and suicides, racism and occurrences of slavery.

It also has a separate file on women migrant workers – mostly employed as housemaids – discussing the issues of rape and trafficking.

According to the organization’s manifest:

Chinese laborers eager to replace Nepali workers in Gulf States

 

 March 28, 2011 

According to Trade Arabia News Service, officials from the Nepali Embassy in Saudi Arabia are set to arrive in Bahrain to outline plans for Nepali workers, fearful of the ongoing and escalating unrest in this Gulf country. The workers are desperate to return to Nepal but have been unable to retrieve their passports from their foreign employers.

Bahrain’s Nepali Club president Durga Bahadur Giri said embassy officials will hold a meeting with workers to hear their views and complete formalities of those who wish to leave Bahrain.

Nepal has one of the biggest expatriate communities in Bahrain with more than 25,000 people working there, mostly as security guards, construction workers and cleaners.

Rescuing Nepalis from Libya

 

February 28, 2011

While the Western press focuses on American and European nationals, who, for the most part have safely retuned to their countries, nearly 50,000 migrant workers from less developed countries are in dire need of rescue from Gaddafi’s lawless regime. Nepalis are among this media-ignored group.

When the uprising began, there were an estimated 3,024 Nepalis working in Libya. As of today, 316 Nepali nationals have returned home, 527 have landed in safe place outside of the Libyan border between 1000 are believed to be trapped in Benghazi and Tripoli, and the remainder are unaccounted for. 

The floundering government in Nepal – with very few resources of its own – has asked the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the International Committee of the Red Cross (CRC) to step in. 

 The IOM has announced funds of $11 million slated to assist approximately 10,000 workers stranded in Libya – not nearly enough to take care of 50,000 migrants stuck in the ravaged country.

Nepalis beware: Don’t try to immigrate to the US through Mexico

 

January 29, 2011

On January 26, Mexican authorities rescued a group of 219 immigrants in the southern state of Chiapas. Four of them were from Nepal. The group included 177 men, 33 women and 9 children – all of them stuffed into the back of a truck like livestock. The police chased down the truck when the driver refused to stop for inspection at a checkpoint. 

After the discovery of human cargo in the back of the truck, the immigrants told the authorities that that they had been threatened into submission and silence by the men who were supposedly transporting them to the United States border. In Guatamala, they had paid $7319, per person, for the dangerous ride. All of them were deported on January 27.

Being caught by the authorities may have been the luckiest thing that happened to the Nepalis. In the following days, they could have easily died from suffocation or heat stroke inside the cramped locked quarters of the truck. And it’s not just the quality of transport that should have concerned the Nepalis.

Dodging a bullet while mired in quicksand: Nepalis working overseas

 

 

December 1, 2010

Thanks to foreign remittances, Nepal is one of the few countries that have not experienced an economic slowdown in the last several years. This is according to a just-released report prepared by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). 

Remittance flow to Nepal is estimated to reach US$3.5 billion in 2010. Nepal received payments worth nearly US$3 billion in 2009.

Manohar Khanal, director at the Department of Foreign Employment (DoFE), said yesterday that the “current demand trend show there will be a sudden boost early next year.” Prior approvals had risen from 23,512 overseas jobs in mid-September to nearly 31,000 in mid-November. And Saudi Arabia has just decided to hire 100,000 Nepali workers over the next four months.

Currently, around 1.7 million Nepalis (out of a total population of 30 million) are working in overseas jobs. All of these laborers – most of them male -- send a large portion of their paychecks back home, which makes up 23 percent of Nepal’s gross domestic product. The DoFE can barely keep up with the paperwork: It is issuing approximately 1000 approvals each day.

Update: Human Trafficking and Slavery in Nepal

June 22, 2010

 

According to the just-released U.S. State Department’s 2010 Traffic in Persons Report, 

Nepal made some progress in its anti-trafficking law enforcement efforts in 2009. But the Nepali government’s efforts were not enough to remove the nation from a “Tier 2” status, which indicates that Nepal has still failed to fully comply with the minimum standards of the U.S. Trafficking Victim Protection Act. 

Lack of resources, the ongoing political instability in Nepal and trafficking-related complicity by government officials, were listed as primary obstacles preventing the young republic from making more progress.

 Below is the full report. 

Video: Nepali Women migrant workers and the dangers they face

 

April 10, 2010

 

For the short film produced by the United Nations CLICK HERE

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Death Rate for Nepali Workers in Qatar Reaches Record High

January 30, 2010

 

According to a new report released by MigrantRights.org, Qatar, the rapidly developing Gulf state, “is becoming a death chamber for Nepali workers, with the number of Nepalis dying in Qatar increasing in the last three years.”

Alex Masi’s photographic documentation of child labor in the Subcontinent

November 21, 2009

click on image to enlarge

 

 

For years I’ve been photo-documenting human rights issues in Nepal, including child labor. Recent statistics shows that about 7 million Nepali children between the ages of 5-14 are working. Apart from health considerations, this negates their chances of getting an education. Nearly half of these children are working full time. Some of them work in India and even further abroad.

 

I was recently in touch with Alex Masi, a London photographer who shares my interest in child exploitation. Alex has taken some amazing shots  of  Indian child laborers in the last few years. The brilliance of his photography makes verbal social commentary almost superfluous. Alex’s work has appeared in “Vanity Fair”, “Marie Claire”, “Newsweek”, “'Condé Nast Portfolio”, “El Pais Semanal”, “Aftenposten Innsikt”, “L' Espresso”, “US News & World Report”, among other international magazines and publications.

The photographs that Alex has allowed me to publish are from his Hidden Youth series, a project documenting child labor in Firozabad, India, an extremely polluted city in Uttar Pradesh (not far from Agra) famous for its glass bangle industry. Firozabad is the only place in India where these bracelets are manufactured and they are sold worldwide – perhaps in a store near you.

In Alex’s words:

Most of the work is carried out by local children, raised to be tools of mass production, chained to a life of exploitation inside their own homes, where the glittering bracelets they handle everyday assume the form of handcuffs to a future of servitude. Due to extreme poverty and a lack of choices, over 20.000 young children are still employed in this area, considered to be one of the highest concentrations of child labour on the planet. Forced to work to support their disadvantaged families, children as young as five can earn an average of 30-40 Indian Rupees [approximate one US dollar] for eight or more hours of work daily, while being unable to receive any sort of education. They sit in crouched positions, use solvents, glues, kerosene and various other dangerous materials while breathing toxic fumes and spending most time of the day in dark, harmful environments.

 

 

To see more of Alex's superb work, visit his website by clicking on his name below:

Alex Masi

  

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Dunham's interview with 8 Young Nepalis Discussing Brain Drain in Nepal

A Youth Initiative group discussion hosted by Mikel Dunham
Shangri-La Hotel, Kathmandu, Nepal

May 7, 2009

Members of the panel included: Daman Katuwal, Balram Yadav, Bikki Yadav, Jagrit Rayamajhi, Bishnu Panthi, Manish Pokharel, Ashis Luitel, Madhav Dhungel, and Bhusita Vasistha

DUNHAM: As youth leaders of Nepal, you come from disparate backgrounds. And yet I’m sure that you have experienced many similar situations growing up in the distinct Nepali culture. I’d like to begin by having you identify yourselves, what group you represent, where you were born and what were some of the basic problems you encountered while making a place for yourself in this society.

SURVIVOR: Dunham's interview with a Nepali Girl Sold into Sexual Slavery

 

April 17, 2009

INTERVIEW WITH SUNITA DANUWAR

































DUNHAM: Sunita, thank you so much for taking time to speak with me – particularly since this is Nepali New Years day, when everyone is on holiday. We are here in Kathmandu at the office of AATWIN and also Shakti Samuha. You, along with fourteen other girls, founded Shakti Samuha in 1996. Why was it founded?

SUNITA: In 1996 India enacted a law that made it illegal for girls under the age of eighteen to be involved with the sex trade. Many brothels were raided at that time and underage girls were rescued. Of the 500 girls rescued, 128 were from Nepal. I was one of them.

The Risks of Nepalis Working Abroad: Dunham's Interview with Raj Kumar Guni

April 15, 2009



























In 2004, twelve Nepali non-skilled laborers were captured in Iraq, held hostage, tortured and finally murdered. One was beheaded while being videoed. The grizzly event was later aired on television throughout the Middle East. The remaining eleven hostages were shot, execution-style.

A terrorist group calling itself the “Army of Ansar al-Sunna”, who took credit for the carnage, later explained that the Nepalis had been “punished for helping the US.”

In fact, the victims’ connection to the US-led coalition was non-existent. They were lured to Iraq -- promised that they would earn the kind of money that was hard (if not impossible) to get back home.   They had no political agendas. They were simply coming to Iraq to be cooks and cleaners.

Sanam Chitrakar: Interconnection of Youth, AIDS and Migration in Nepal

April 1, 2009




























Sanam Chitrakar, a native of Kathmandu, has spent years working in the far west helping the local populations. Most recently, he has served as program directory for Gangotri Rural Development Forum (GaRDeF), Achham district. His work with youth, HIV/AIDS and the hazards of migration as a way of life, has given him a unique perspective on the interconnectivity of all three phenomena.

I had the opportunity to sit down and speak with Sanam two days ago in Kathmandu.

2009 Economic Forecast for Nepal: Don't Forget the Vampires

February 7, 2009






































Last autumn, when the new government took control of the country, it was hoped that the international economic crisis would have minimal impact on Nepal’s fledging economy. The reasoning went that, since Nepal was only marginally involved with global finance, the country could emerge from a world recession relatively unscathed.

When I interviewed Finance Minister Dr. Baburam Bhattarai (September 2008) and asked him about the possible ripple effect of the plunging world market, he was cautiously optimistic: “Actually, it has some impact,” he agreed, “but it’s not very big because our economy is at the far periphery of the global economy. In that sense, I think the impact will be minimal. So we will work out measures, keeping this in mind.”

Nepali Men trafficked, abused, killed in the Middle East; US corporation implicated

December 19, 2008

 

 

 

The following report was filed by the International Organization for Migration one week ago.

 

Eight Nepalese migrants lured to Iraq by the promise of a well-paid job and left stranded on arrival without work, money or documents, have returned home today with IOM's assistance.

The men are being taken back to their homes where, depending on IOM obtaining sufficient funding and individual needs, they will be given reintegration assistance.

Nepal: Fuel Crisis, Police Revolt, Presidential Election and Nepalis Leaving Nepal

 

July 16, 2008

 

Fuel Crisis Worsens in Nepal

 

The fuel crisis in Nepal intensified on July 12 when Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), the main supplier of petroleum products to Nepal, cut supplies by 65%. This occurred after state-run Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) failed to make payments on outstanding debts to IOC.

Nepal has no oil reserves of its own and depends on its giant neighbor India for its needs.

Interview with Nepal's Maoist Leader Dr. Baburam Bhattarai

November 1, 2007

Dr. Baburam Bhattarai
When reporting on the Maoists in Nepal, Western journalists tend to focus on Chairman Prachanda, (nom de guerre of Pushpa Kamal Dahal), usually overlooking the major influence that Dr. Baburam Bhattarai has wielded within the Party—from the very beginning to the present time. Although it is Prachanda’s face that will greet you on the official Maoist website, it is fair to say that it is the combined efforts of Prachanda and Dr. Bhattarai, together, that have so altered the course of Nepal’s history.

Political Instability & the Marginalization of Nepal's Youth -- Dunham's Interview with Gagan Thapa

October 4, 2007 Update

60% of Nepal’s population is under the age of thirty—an incredibly young population, as it is in much of Southeast Asia. In principal, that aught to be a huge asset for Nepal. So far, it is not. It remains an asset untapped and, in many cases, intentionally ignored by the elite congregation of old men who wield real power. Nepal’s Prime Minister is in his mid-eighties, too frail to attend many state functions, including his own inauguration. Politically, the youth are exploited to do the parties’ work out on the street but, at the end of the day, they are not to be trusted or given any meaningful say in party business. Unlike American society, where a rapidly aging majority is marginalized by youth culture—it’s borderline shameful to grow old in the United States—Nepal is thoroughly patriarchal and the youth are, at best, patronized and, at worst, utterly dismissed.