Nepal has been a net exporter of human capital. Forced to migrate due to hardships such as exploitation, indebtedness, falling agricultural productivity, and lack of jobs at home, Nepalis have traditionally sought greener pastures abroad. Migration has been a safety valve that has let rulers in Kathmandu off the hook for their spectacular and unparalleled failure over the years in offering gainful employment at home for its citizens.
Such is the desperation that drives Nepalis to migrate, that the exodus has historically been seen as a given. The despair also partly explains the lack of outrage in Nepal about the export of our young men and women. The recruitment of the citizens of one country to fight and die for another is incongruous in this day and age, yet hiring mercenaries hardly raises an eyebrow in Nepal.
The most alarming aspect about the trafficking of young Nepali women to brothels in India is not just the absence of any political will to stop it, but that the very communities from which the girls are taken tolerate this sexual slavery. Today, traffickers have moved on to duping and cheating young Nepali women in working as household help, and in this paper we have provided regular coverage of the horrendous exploitation and abuse they suffer at the hands of Nepali middlemen and their employers, particularly in the Gulf.
Contrary to conventional wisdom, poverty alone is not the primary driving force behind migration. The push factors of this mass exodus are the structural exclusion of a large section of the population, entrenched social injustice, weak governance and the ingrained neglect and apathy towards the welfare of its citizens. The districts from where there is the most out-migration are not the poorest: many who live in abject poverty simply can’t afford to migrate, because they don’t have the cash savings to pay middlemen fees and travel costs.- See more at:
0 comments:
Post a Comment