BU Research Blog

On my latest trip to Nepal I noticed a number of related newspaper stories about those wanting to migrate abroad for work.  Yesterday there was an article with the headline ‘Three held for defrauding unemployed youths’ (The Himalayan Times, January 11, page 2), which could be seen as story about crime, just like the one next to it on the same page with was headed ‘Vehicle stolen’ (The Himalayan Times, January 11, page 2) .  Both fit under the category of people suffering from crime committed by naughty people.  However, having studied labour migration as a sociologist for over a decade it also speaks of the desperation of young people to leave Nepal.  In that sense, the ‘Three held for defrauding unemployed youths’ story, is more like the story the day before ‘Family of Nepali who joined Russian Army worried after hearing about his death’  (The Himalayan Times, January 10, page 1).

In the latter story of a tragic death of a Nepalese mercenary, the most unexpected element I found was that Nepalese victim had paid Rs. 500,000 to criminals, who acted as brokers.  I would have expected that Putin’s agents operating in the Middle East were paying large amounts of money to potential army recruits to fight in the invasion of Ukraine.  To my great surprise, the payment was the other way round, where Nepalese migrant workers are desperate enough to pay the country at war.  When people are desperate to work abroad unscrupulous brokers see opportunities to make money.

Whilst at the end of December 2023 two Nepalese men were killed when Korean language test candidates were staging demonstrations in Kathmandu demanding that they be allowed to appear for language tests for jobs in the manufacturing sector in South Korea.  When the Minister for Physical Infrastructure and Transport stopped to intervene, he sparked a riot and his car was set on fire.  The police opened fire and killed two protesters in a very un-Nepalese way of dealing with protest.   Again to me the underlying issue to note is how desperate these men are to go abroad and get to work in South Korea.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMWH (Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health)