Reproduced below is an Op-ed that I wrote and was published in the January 4 issue of eKantipur. Hyperlinks are my own addition.
Costs of Leaving Home
DORJE GURUNG
KATHMANDU, JAN 04 –
Even white-collar workers with written—supposedly legally binding—contracts run afoul of rules, regulations and even the law, simply based on local allegations and suffer grave injustices in Qatar. How much more do semi- and unskilled, mostly uneducated, migrant Nepali labourers suffer? And what about their younger siblings and/or children back home who depend entirely on their salaries not just for a livelihood but also for expenses such as education?
Personal experiences
After over 15 years of international teaching experience in over half a dozen countries spanning four continents, I accepted a job at Qatar Academy in Doha as a Chemistry and Science teacher. I moved to Qatar on August 2011. Though the staff and the curriculum were international, the student population, however, wasn’t. A large percentage of the student body was Qatari, followed by other Arabs.
I got very little respect from locals and other Arab students. I had a solid number of years of international teaching experience, along with degrees from three different institutions in Italy, the US and Australia. But none of that appeared to matter. Being Nepali meant being insignificant. As if that wasn’t enough, I was thrown in jail following an exchange with a few twelve-year old students in the cafeteria. Alleged to have insulted Islam, I spent 11 nights and 12 days in jail before being freed following a worldwide outcry over the injustice!
I was one of the lucky few to have been freed the way I was. Semi- and unskilled uneducated migrant labourers aren’t that lucky, whether outside or inside jail. Being disrespected and referred to as ‘animals’ is one of the tamer forms of inhumane treatment. The mistreatment involves abuse of human rights, which has a negative impact not just on the labourer but also on families and children back home. Such acts of humiliation and abuse include, but are not limited to, providing inadequate or less than the agreed-upon salary owed, receiving salaries late, not receiving salaries at all or, worse, being jailed on trumped up charges.
Not so lucky
During my stay in Qatar, I read, heard and saw first hand how Nepali and other migrant workers suffered at the hands of their employers. During my stay at the Al Rayyan jail, I met Nepali workers jailed on trumped up charges. A fellow Nepali inmate had been jailed simply for asking for the monies owed him. He hadn’t been paid in 11 months! A young man, maybe a minor, I discovered, had been jailed on murder charges following the death of a co-worker two days after being hospitalised with an ailment that had started at the work site one afternoon. The young man didn’t even know the cause of death of his supposed murder victim!
Sometimes, a labourer, not provided adequate health and safety facilities or for other reasons, pays the ultimate price—he/she pays with their life. Then the family back home suffers considerably more.
Citing official data, a December 18 headline in the Post claimed that almost half a million Nepalis had left the country during the last fiscal year. The number of migrants leaving the country daily is a staggering 20,000! Out of them, on average, three return dead, bundled up in coffins, at the Tribhuvan International Airport every day. According to a December 29 article on Setopati, approximately 120 dead bodies arrived in Kathmandu just this past month, an increase of 65 percent from the previous month. As more and more Nepalis leave, more also return dead.
Prospective migrant workers pay Rs100,000 or more to secure a job abroad, though the government’s stipulated amount that recruitment agents are allowed to charge is considerably lower. Unable to pay, poor and desperate migrants take loans at exorbitant interest rates—anywhere from 30 to 60 percent. When the breadwinner returns in a coffin, the surviving families are saddled with the burden of paying off the loans, which they do by selling or handing over their properties and material wealth. Left destitute, younger siblings and/or children end up suffering the most—their dreams are shattered.
Think of the children
Bishnu was one such child. She had big dreams—she wanted to be the most educated woman in her village. She dreamt of being a thulo manche by finishing her Plus Two studies, getting tertiary education and ultimately returning to her village to work as a teacher and inspire others. She had excelled in her studies all through her school career. In order to give her and her six siblings a shot at an opportunity to realise their dreams, her father, Dol Bahadur, left his family in April for Qatar to work as a construction worker. Less than five months later, he returned home in a coffin.
Naturally, with the death of her father, Bishnu believed that her dreams had also died. Being the first born, and with no one left to support the family, she would have had to drop out of school and work to support her six siblings and mother. However, brought to the attention of COMMITTED, the non-profit I represent and work for, we were able to raise sufficient funds to help her stay in school to complete her Plus Two studies.
There must be hundreds of children like Bishnu. We have records of about 50 labourers who died in the last calendar year. That’s 50 affected families and their children. If the education of these children is not taken care of, what has befallen their parents or older siblings will befall them. The cycle will continue unabated.
The purpose of [“We’re] COMMITTED[” campaign] is to raise funds for the education of the children of dead migrant workers. But it is also to raise awareness about the plight of migrant labourers. Our hope behind this initiative is that these innocent victims, the children, are able to get a good education, realise their dreams and chart their own destinies, unlike their parents.
Gurung is education programme director at COMMITTED.
