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Today we’re taking a step back from the personal stories we’ve been hearing to get some perspective on migration and Nepal. Specifically, we’re talking about women who leave the country to work, including why a ban on them migrating as domestic workers is not a good idea. We’ll also hear – and this is the idea that jolted my brain during the interview – why we need to share positive news about women’s migration. 

My guest today, in the Himal Media studio in Patan Dhoka, is Sadikshya Bhattarai, Research Coordinator at the Centre for the Study of Labour and Mobility, aka CESLAM, at Social Science Baha here in Kathmandu. During our chat, Sadikshya does a great job of sketching the history of women migrating for work until today. She then details how the ban on women working as domestics in Gulf countries has evolved, and why it should end. But this isn’t a single-focus discussion—Sadikshya also notes the many initiatives that the three levels of government and their partners have taken to try and improve the system, but concludes that they’re just not working as intended.

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Centre for the Study of Labour and Mobility (CESLAM)

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Hi everyone, this is Marty.

I got a really interesting and positive email about our last interview with Soham, who first moved to the US when he was 17, a couple of decades ago, and he's been going back and forth ever since. The email was from Jennifer, and I want to read a few excerpts:

"I learned so much as it's information which is not easily available. It also validated at a gut level what I thought was happening in Nepal. I appreciate the new perspectives Soham articulated, and which I hadn't considered that Nepal wouldn't have progressed on several areas today if migration hadn't happened."

"I know it isn't clear cut, but essentially I had viewed migration as an unconscious contributor to the breakdown of the essence of what makes Nepal unique, vital, and such a role model in terms of family support, traditions, life outlook, etc.

"I agree absolutely: I think the Nepalese government should have reverse brain drain policies in place. I've never heard this stated publicly before, and I hope it gains momentum, as it's a very empowering perspective. I think this direction would reignite Nepalis own belief in their country."

So, thank you very much, Jennifer. I'd love to be able to read more of this kind of feedback, positive or negative we don't discriminate. So, again, you can email me at nepalnowpod(at)gmail.com or you can send a text message using the link at the top of the show notes for every episode. It is a US number, so if you're not in the US or Canada, there will be some charges.

Also this week, as usual, there's been lots of news about migration. I finally took a look at the World Migration Report 2024, and pulled out a couple of facts about Nepal. For example, Nepal is the number 10 country in terms of remittances or the money that migrants send back home, expressed as a percentage of GDP.  For Nepal, remittances make up 23 percent or almost one quarter of Nepal's gross domestic product. The number one country by the way is Tajikistan at 52 percent.

Another piece of news I want to mention is in the Kathmandu Post. (I'll put links to these items in the notes to this show.} The news comes from Rukum West, a district in the Karnali region, and it quotes a guy named Subhas, who has spent 8. 6 million rupees in the last decade (about 64, 000 US dollars) trying to, himself or his son, get to the US through illegal channels. And this is a phenomenon that's been growing in recent years.

In fact, one reason I switched Nepal Now podcast to focus solely on migration is I heard a story when I was in Rukum West, following the earthquake in Jajarkot late last year. I met a nurse, and she told us that her husband had left a year earlier to make his way to the US through illegal routes and had already spent one crore. One crore is 10 million Nepali rupees, so about 70, 000 dollars.. And that is just a huge amount of money. for people living in rural Nepal or anywhere in Nepal, where some people continue to live on sums as low as two dollars a day, for example.

Resources

Kathmandu post article on illegal migration from Rukum West

World Migration Report 2024

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Today we’re speaking with Soham Dhakal, who first travelled to the US when he was 17 and has been back and forth between the two countries so many times he considers himself a nomad. But before we get to Soham’s story I want to correct something I said last week. Our new text messaging service is not limited: it’s for everyone listening to the show, on any app. Sneak a quick look now to confirm: at the top of the description to this episode – and every episode –  you’ll see the words ‘Send us a Text Message.’ Click on it now to do just that, wherever you are, including Nepal. (I know because I tried it myself last week). Fyi, the number you’re texting is in the US, so you’ll have to pay the usual rates. Text us about anything you hear on Nepal Now, or to send us ideas for the show. 

OK, on with our story. As you’ll hear me say, Soham was one of the first people I thought of when I decided to start this series of migration. I’ve known him for about 7 years and he’s always been splitting his time between countries. I haven’t been part of his life in the US but I know that when he’s in Nepal he’s also on the move: a very busy, sociable guy. Where some people might think of what they’ll lose when they leave country A for country B, and vice-versa, I imagine Soham thinks about what he gets to add back into his life when he returns to each place. 

It's a cliché that being away from a place gives you more perspective on it, but Soham seems to have actually put that into practice, and offers interesting thoughts on how migration has coloured his own life, the relationship with his family, and Nepal itself, the country that he still considers home. 

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Heard something you really liked, or disliked? You can now let us know by sending  a text message directly from the website. In the description of each episode, at the very top left, you'll see a link that says, What do you think? Send a text. Click on that and your messaging app will open on your phone and you can write us a text message, which I think is pretty cool. Full disclosure: it's a US-based number so you won't pay anything if you're texting from the US or Canada; for other places the usual charges will apply. (That's about 8 rupees from Nepal)

Also this week, uh, some news about migration. There was a really good article, depressing but good article, in The Guardian about the kafala system of labour that's used in the Gulf countries and some neighboring countries. And it's basically a way of employers to control their workforce. And particularly for our purposes, women who go there to work as domestic workers.

And you might have listened to the episode we did last month with Sushma, who went to Kuwait and had to come back early after three months. So this is the type of system that is used to control workers like Sushma, who had a pretty tough time considering the short amount of time that she was there. She, at different times, was locked in rooms without a phone. She was deprived of food. She witnessed another worker being physically abused. This system is apparently being reformed in some countries, but it's happening too slowly.

And this article in The Guardian is linked to an upcoming episode that we're going to have with an expert who's going to be talking about women migrant workers from Nepal going to the Gulf and other countries. So if you haven't yet subscribed or followed the show, you might want to do that right now so you don't miss that episode.

Coming up in our next full interview next week, we're going to be speaking to Soham. Soham first migrated from Nepal to the U. S. when he was 17 to study, and in the last couple decades he's been going back and forth working at various jobs in the U. S. and Nepal also. Has many experiences that he talks about as well as unique opinions about migration personally and about its impact on Nepal as a whole. So stay tuned for that one.

Resources

The Guardian article about the kafala system

Article about migrants from Tanahun District disappearing in Russia

CESLAM website with newsletter sign-up

Sushma episode

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Aayush Pokharel will soon be graduating from his diploma programme in Canada, and so his search for a full-time job has already started. He’ll have three years to work in the country before leaving or applying for permanent residency. For now he says he wants to come back to Nepal.

Aayush was one of more than 20,000 young Nepalis officially studying in Canada in 2023, according to one report. That’s almost triple the 7,680 students in 2022, making Canada one of the most popular destinations for Nepali students. That is changing fast though: word had already got out about Canada’s increasingly expensive housing and scarcity of jobs for students. Then late last year the government announced that it was more than doubling the financial requirement for international students. It has also cut the number of work permits that will be available to graduating students. And this week it announced it is limiting the number of hours that international students can work per week, off campus.

Aayush says he won’t be affected by any of the announced changes. He tells me that he went to Canada, really, to kickstart his career, and thinks he is still on track to do that. Studies are the easy part, he says, making ends meet otherwise is tough. It means, for example, trying to resist the temptations that would leave him financially bound to Canada, like having to make regular payments on a car loan, or a mortgage. After all, Aayush did promise his father that he’d return to Nepal after five years.

A couple of notes before we start. First, if you’re a student thinking of going to Canada please confirm any information that you hear in this conversation – it is opinion only, not verified fact. Second, you might have noticed that most of the interviews in this new season of the show were done in person, which is reflected in the great sound quality. This one was not — we recorded online – so it doesn’t quite match that level, but I don’t think you’ll have any problems hearing us. Let me know if you do.

Please listen now to my conversation with Aayush Pokharel. 

Resources

Rising Nepal article on Nepali students in Canada

Government of Canada press release describing some recent changes

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Welcome to Nepal Now: Right Now, a weekly micro-episode where we share news about the show and what's happening in migration as it affects Nepal.

First, I want to give a shout out to listener Sikhar for his persistence. He wrote and suggested a guest to me. And somehow I couldn't figure out how I could link that guest and their work with this, podcast on migration. And so I wrote back to him. He wrote back to me and very clearly spelled it out. And so I finally got it. So thank you very much again, Sikhar, for, um, for sticking with it and making me understand what you were suggesting.

This week I'll be recording two interviews. The first will be with a migration expert. We'll be talking about women migrant workers. And in particular, we'll be discussing the Sushma case. You might remember Sushma, whose episode we aired a few weeks back. She went to Kuwait and had to come back early.

Also this week, there's  a traveling government consultation that's happening, on the government's draft labor migration policy.  Hopefully some of the proposals that they present will make things better for migrant workers like Sushma.

The second interview I'm doing this week is with a couple who are both applying to go work in South Korea. I met and talked to the husband when he had just finished his first exam. But they're both applying to go, which is quite unusual, I think. And what makes their story even more unique is that they met as migrant workers in Saudi Arabia before COVID.

Also in the news this week and last, there have been protests by family members of migrants  who were recruited to go work in Russia and nearby countries and then taken into the Russian army. And a number of Nepalese now have died while serving in the Russian army and more are there trying to get back and have appealed to the government to help them come back. I even read a report this week that some of those recruits were let go from the army and then stuck in this kind of no man's land near the border with Ukraine and Russia, never made it out and have now been forced to go back into the army and continue serving.

Also in the news this week, in Nepali Times, they're running a series on internal migration from the eastern hills down to the plains, a migration caused by drought and climate change, also. If you're interested, I'll put the links to these stories in the notes to this episode.

Resources

Article on migrants stuck in Russia

Nepali Times reporting on drought and internal migration

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Hi everyone. I’m Marty Logan. Thank you for clicking on this episode of Nepal Now: On the Move, where we speak with some of the huge number of people leaving – and occasionally returning – to this country wedged between India and China.

Bharat Adhikari is another former migrant worker who returned to live in Nepal, but his story could hardly be more different than Sushma’s, who we heard from in a previous episode. I chatted recently with Bharat at the Himal Media studio in Patan Dhoka. 

After more than a decade working in the retail sector in the Persian Gulf countries of Oman and Dubai, Bharat and his family decided it was time to come home. He describes the aha! moment when he returned home from work one day and realized that his mother and daughter had almost everything that money could buy to make them happy living overseas – but not a community. 

Bharat broke the news to his boss in 2020, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the man suggested he was crazy. But Bharat insisted that it was the best thing for his ageing mother and young daughter, and finally convinced him (although today he still gets offers from his former employer in Dubai to return). 

Aside from the decision to leave his successful career in exchange for society and culture in Nepal, what I find interesting about Bharat’s story is that his first venture here failed. Well not exactly – he gave up on starting a new business when he realized that he would have to ingratiate himself with government officials. Bharat understood then that having worked only in Gulf countries, he needed to be operating within a disciplined system. Luckily he’s now found it in his new job. 

Please listen now to my conversation with Bharat Adhikari. 

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This is the first episode of our new micro-series: Nepal Now: Right Now.

These pieces will fill the gap between regular full episodes of the show, which are published every two weeks. About 5 minutes long, they will be published on alternate weeks and will focus on past and upcoming episodes — including listener feedback — sharing news about migration and Nepal, and anything else relevant to Nepal Now.

Let us know what you think of this new addition to the show, and about this first episode in particular.

Resources

Article quoting Nepal's Prime Minister Dahal on youth migration

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Hi everyone. I’m Marty Logan. Thank you for choosing to listen to Nepal Now: On the Move from the literally millions of podcasts available. This is our third episode since we shifted the show’s focus to migration — to, from, and within Nepal. And, I gotta say: I’m biting my nails waiting for feedback from you listeners — especially long-time fans. Good, bad or indifferent, I want to hear it. Your responses are the best way for me to see how I might improve the show. So please take a minute to leave a comment on Instagram, Facebook or LinkedIn, email me at nepalnowpod(at)gmail.com, or leave a review on Spotify or Apple podcasts.

Today we’re speaking with another returnee to Nepal, but one with a much different story than what we heard from baker/entrepreneur Aanchal last week. We’re calling her Sushma, which is not her real name, because she has received threats from people who were involved in sending her to work in Kuwait. Sushma has filed a report with police, but nothing had come of it as of March 31st. The good news is that she is back home with her children, who she was very worried about, and taking medication.

Sushma left her village in Nepal’s Karnali region last November, and within a month was in Dubai, waiting to be taken to a job in Kuwait. She arrived there after a month but stayed only 3 months because she fell ill — but not before being threatened with harm if she didn’t go back to work. She also saw another worker being hit by a house owner, had her phone taken away, and was told by employers in another house that she couldn’t leave because “We bought you.”

Back in Nepal, Sushma, who didn’t attend school as a child and used to earn money in her village by manually breaking stones, is now saddled with a huge debt after her family mortgaged land to pay the agent for her ticket home. But given what she experienced in her brief stay in Kuwait, that seems far better than other possible outcomes.

This is the first episode where I worked with an interpreter, Pranika Koyu, who was in the studio with Sushma and I. She did an amazing job, but occasionally you might hear that I left out a voice when I shouldn’t have. That and any other editing errors are mine. A couple other notes: you’ll hear us talk about lakhs of money: 1 lakh is 100,000 Nepali rupees, which is about $750. Sushma says sometimes that the agent demanded 3 lakhs, 50,000 rupees for her return; other times she says 3 lakhs 20,000. We settled on the last amount. Finally, near the end of our conversation I ask Sushma about something I had heard earlier in the day about her police case. I deliberately deleted the name of the person who told me, for the same security reasons.

Just one more thing: I recently found out that there are two versions of the show on Apple Podcasts. I have no idea how that happened but it means I need to delete one. The choice is easy: one has all the episodes and one has fewer; one has quite a few subscribers – I like to think – and one has only about 20. So that second one I’m going to delete tomorrow. If you listen to the show on Apple Podcasts, just be aware of that. And if you notice something has changed, particularly if you can’t listen to the show anymore, I suggest that you delete the show and then resubscribe or re-follow, however it works on Apple. If you have any problems beyond that, please let me know.

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Pourakhi Nepal

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Hi everyone. I'm Marty Logan. Thank you for listening to Nepal Now: On the Move. 

Let me know what you think of this episode, and if you have ideas for future guests. My email is [email protected]. I’ve done about 10 interviews to date for the show and I can see that it’s going to be much more difficult to find female guests than male ones, so please do send me tips about women who I might speak to. As a bit of a teaser, the people you’re going to hear from in future episodes have, for example: 

• Gone to study in Canada
• Migrated to work in Kuwait but had to return early and is now taking legal action against the people who sent them there
• Voluntarily left a rising career in Oman to return to Nepal to share the country’s cultural values with their child
• Worked for some months in the US, then some months in Nepal, and continues to go back and forth regularly.

The Covid-19 lockdown in New Delhi forced Aanchal Dutt to develop baking skills in order to satisfy her sweet tooth. Anxieties about her parents living hundreds of kilometres away in her hometown Surkhet, pushed her to give up life in the mega-city she had known from childhood to open a bakery in the small town once the restrictions had passed. 

Aanchal is one of a very small minority of Nepalis who are immigrating to the country instead of emigrating. But her/their story is important to hear if Nepal is to slow the now torrential flow of people leaving the country for what they hear are better opportunities abroad. 

Since I’ve been working on this revamped show, I’m quite sure that Aanchal is the only young Nepali I’ve met who hasn’t wanted to migrate and has actually returned here. The Cake House is now thriving, as a family affair, which I’m happy to say I witnessed when I was in Surkhet. (Btw, if you need a recommendation, the favourite sweet is cheesecake). Aanchal has also fallen in love with an alternative school that practises an holistic approach to learning, and is teaching English there. She says she understands why young people are leaving the country, but passionately urges them to return to help build a better Nepal.

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