President of Nepal Night Industry Entrepreneurs Association (NNIEA) Samir Gurung says that ever since the clampdown last year, a large number of bar girls have been picked by Indian agents and Nepali sub-agents to work in dance bars in China, Dubai, Singapore, Malaysia and South Africa, where the girls can earn up to 10 times of what they earned here. [break]
The stint abroad is not just financially rewarding for the girls, but also adds value to their resume. For some, a stint abroad is so rewarding that they can afford to refuse another such offer.
Take for instance, a girl, who works at a dance bar in Old Baneshwar. Reena is the name the girl recently coined for herself. “Reena is my name in this bar. I have many names,” said the girl. Reena ended up in the bar as its highest paid dancer three months ago after a two-year stint abroad.
She danced in Beijing, Dubai and Singapore. The foreign jobs boosted her financial status to such an extent that should there be any offer to fly again, she says she would refuse it outright.
“Today, I earn as much here,” the 29-year-old from Narayanghat told Republica during a repeatedly interrupted interview at a congested underground cell used by the bar as the staff kitchen.
The bar management could not let her dabble elsewhere when regular and lucrative costumers demand the “best collector” on stage or seek to cuddle with them.
Career´s high point
For Nepali bar girls, getting an opportunity to work abroad is their career´s most successful and rewarding moment. Eight Nepali bar girls landed in Singapore last week. One of them was working at a dance bar in Baneshwor and decided not to miss the chance though she actually wanted to meet her daughter who is now living with her parents in Dharan.
“Going abroad is the first choice among dance girls,” said the proprietor of the bar, requesting anonymity.
Dance bars in foreign countries have set up a competitive channel to procure bar girls from Nepal, though it is an illegal arrangement.
Nepal government does not permit dance girls to leave for overseas jobs. Legalizing this category of overseas employment seems a far call when the government has even cut permission for domestic helps short.
“There is no provision to permit dance girls for overseas jobs,” said Director General of Foreign Employment Department (FED) Mohan Krishna Sapkota.
An estimated half of the Nepali workers are said to have been going overseas through illegal channels. Dance girls comprises a significant chunk of such workers.
According to bar proprietors, Nepali dance girls fly to their destinations from India, where most of their agents are based, to seemingly avert legal hurdles at home. They are taken there on tourist visas.
NINEA President Gurung says his organization can furnish a long list of agents representing dance bars in foreign countries if the government asks for it.
According to Gurung, owners of dance bars in foreign countries sometimes come to Nepal themselves to look for dance girls while there are scores of Indian agents and their Nepali sub-agents based in Kathmandu. The dance girls, who worked abroad, also seem to have been brokering for the trade after they return and rejoin the local bars.
Bar girls go abroad in groups
Reena went to Beijing with six girls and five boys. Her employers there, a Chinese couple of one ´Cool Bar´ in central Beijing, themselves came to Nepal to employ them for a six-month stint. But they did not complete their term owing to adverse climate.
Last March, Reena went to Dubai with two others and found 31 Nepali girls in three branches of ´Dhadkan Dance Bar´ that she worked for.
After two months´ stint there, she returned Nepal and immediately made way for Singapore, where a bar named ´Khajana´ with already 25 Nepali girls was ready to welcome her.
The trend reached a high particularly after the government enforced a 12 pm deadline one-and-a-half year ago, says Gurung.
“The bars still suffer badly. The foreign agents took advantage of our hard times. Employees embraced the opportunity instead of giving up on the business,” he added.
Bar owners in Nepal claim that they can stop the illegal detour of Nepali dance girls by ensuring better benefits, given proper regulations and promotion.
Experienced dance girls in Nepal are now found to get a salary of up to Rs 15,000 plus a regular tip of Rs 500 every day.
The average salary of Nepali dance girls overseas seems to be between Rs 40,000 to Rs 60,000. “In Singapore, bar girls can earn as much as 80, 000,” says Reena.
Nepali girls at the receiving end
“They accept the offers blindly. With no legal status, they will be helpless if they happen to face any problem,” said NINEA President Gurung. “We hear that there are a good many hidden cases in which Nepali dance girls are victimized.”
He argued that this part of foreign employment should also be brought under the Labor Act. FED has no reported complaint about the Nepali dance girls working abroad. However, Reena reveals her experience in Dubai that dance girls should meet a “collection target” set by the owners and thus might also have to be “closer” to the clients. “Dubai is only for ´Tatha Batha´ (clever ones),” she added.
According to NNIEA, there are 200 dance bars in Kathmandu, each employing 15-20 girls on an average. “We think that only around 5 percent of them have completed school education,” Gurung says. “Lack of education is the main reason behind this trend.”
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