At the Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA)´s international terminal, the airlines staff checked his luggage in and gave him the boarding pass one recent afternoon. Visibly excited about his maiden foreign trip – to Malaysia, he quickly moved to the immigration desk, where passengers are required to submit their departure cards. There, even as he held his passport and departure card, he looked a bit uncomfortable. He walked to me.
"Could you (please) help me fill this out dai?" he asked me. I was in a rush to catch my own flight to Manila via Bangkok. Even so, I decided to help him. I filled out his card even before mine. Then, four more - all foreign-bound Nepali workers - came and surrounded me. I managed to help them all. The stylish-looking ´rapper´ was born in Nuwakot but raised in Kathmandu.
"Desh ko halat khattam chha, ke garne (What to do, the state of our nation has got worse)?" he said, as I put down his passport details. "I am going to Malaysia for a couple of years and make some money."
Thousand-a-day
And then there were three Yadavs from Santhaiya, Siraha, who were heading for Saudi Arabia via Doha, Qatar. The fourth person, a stylish, young girl from Ramechhap, was flying to Dubai, UAE. She was not alone. There were dozens of Nepali girls and women in lines who were flying to Dubai – a new Mecca for young Nepali workers. As has been the case in recent years, the immigration section looked choc-a-bloc with foreign-bound young Nepalis that day.
As Dashain beckoned, a lot of Nepalis working, studying or living abroad were returning home. But Dashain didn´t stop the ´rapper´ from going to Malaysia; Dashain didn´t stop the young girls from flying to Dubai. Dashain is a big Nepali festival. Peoples from the hills to plains have observed it for centuries. Yet for many Nepali ambitious and freedom loving youths, festivals like Dashain and Tihar appear less important compared to their foreign-employment dreams, compared to the economic hardships they are facing.
As the working conditions fail to improve in the homeland, the flight of Nepal´s precious human resources continue. As Nepali industries fail to grow - and shut, one after another - Nepali youths continue to work hard to live their Malaysia, Saudi, Qatar or Dubai dreams. And their numbers are just growing. According to official figures, over 1,000 young Nepali foreign-employment-seekers are leaving the Tribhuvan International Airport every day.
Nobody knows how many Nepalis are crossing the open and "porous" Nepal-India border every day. And nobody knows how many Nepali workers are flying to the Gulf and East Asian countries via Indian cities every day. Because most Nepali workers are illiterate - so much so that they can´t even write down their names on arrival or departure cards – they are susceptible to duping and trickery: Both inside and outside Nepal.
Massive duping
Such being the reality, shouldn´t the government do something about it? Shouldn´t it nip the problem in the bud and train the unskilled Nepali workers, so that they can travel better and easier and earn bigger? Don´t the myriad of ´man power agencies´ – the 750 that are currently operating in Nepal – have a responsibility to train their workers to do basic reading and writing?
They do. They must. But it´s unfortunate that nothing of that sort is happening. What´s even more unfortunate is this: The duping of Nepali workers starts from home. Thanks to widespread – and institutional – corruption in the government bureaucracy, the workers are asked to grease the palms of officials at all the government offices they need to visit to ready their travel and employment documents.
Equally worryingly, numerous reports from the Gulf and East Asia suggest that a lot of Nepali workers travel with "fake" work permits and "fake" employment contracts. That means that the workers don´t get the previously agreed job, salary, insurance and other benefits. And as to how a lot of Nepali female workers have been duped, tricked and exploited is a different – more serious – topic altogether.
As the Secretary at the Prime Minister´s Office Lilamani Poudel made it clear this week, the Department of Foreign Employment (DOFE) "earns" around Rs 2 million every day from bribe from foreign-bound workers. What´s even more disgusting is the revelation that the amount is shared amongst all the department employees including the minister. This time around, PM Baburam Bhattarai himself is holding onto the Labor portfolio.
Dashain gift?
Now that he´s been briefed about the problem, his voters – and the zillions of well-wishers who appear to have extremely high hopes on him – expect him to end the broad-day-light corruption that´s thriving by the day. (And because the DOFE is not the only government office where bribery and petty corruption are thriving, singling out won´t help; a nationwide and much more effective anti-corruption drive will be needed.)
It´s time the government took its workers abroad seriously. Preliminary results of the Census 2011 pointed out that nearly 2 million Nepalis are absent, meaning that they are outside Nepal, working, studying or living. Together, they sent around Rs 250 billion last fiscal – nearly half the current annual budget - providing the much-needed relief to the impoverished economy; providing the much-need relief and succor to the conflict-hit families.
This Dashain there´s no dearth of tragic happenstances. We couldn´t avert them. Braving adversities like earthquakes, accidents, late monsoon, Nepalis from hills to plains are bracing for a colorful Dashain. For its part, the BRB government can come clean on one front: Corruption-free foreign employment for its poor, duping-prone, unskilled workers. That´s the best Dashain gift it can give.
The author is a BBC Correspondent
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