SHACKLED BY poverty and lacking in opportunities within the country, an increasing number of our fellow marginalized Nepalese, even as early as the nineties, started buying hope in the form of passage to foreign countries they knew very little about.
According to the 2011 Census Report, almost 2 million Nepalese live abroad. Half of them were from the age group 15-24. These numbers, incidentally, do not include those living in India.
About half a million left the country through legal channels in 2012-13 alone. Apparently about two thousand leave everyday legally. And since the earthquake, I am told, that numbers have increased.
Heavily leaden with debts, these semi- and unskilled poor Nepalese migrants, fall into yet another trap, one of discrimination and exploitation, and thus suffer again from violation of their rights in the destination countries.
Qatar is one of the most popular destinations.
I MYSELF was a migrant for over 15 years — travelling and working around the world as an international science teacher. In August 2011, my own movements took me to Qatar, after working in 8 different countries.
I read about, heard, and saw with my own eyes how the Nepalese and other Asian workers were mistreated in the country. In spite of my qualifications and experience, I wasn’t spared the treatment either! I suffered from discrimination and even incarceration in Qatar.
Based on the words of his twelve-year old son, a Qatari father logged felony charges against me for allegedly insulting Islam and I was jailed. During my time in jail, I met other Nepalese who had also been incarcerated on trumped up charges. The most heart-wrenching story was that of a young man from Dang area everyone called, “Chotu.” Unable to speak Arabic and without representation of any kind, he did not know much of the details of his case, including how his “murder victim” even died and why he had been charged with murder.
While all the workers jailed on trumped up charges, like Chotu, had no help from anyone, on the 8th day of my own incarceration, friends of mine had Doha News and Washington Post publish my story.
When friends around the world, including those from St. Xavier’s School, United World Colleges, and Grinnell College picked up the stories, they rallied behind me and initiated a worldwide campaign to get me freed on human rights grounds.
Within four days of initiating it, the campaign had gotten so big that I was released. I returned home on May 13, after spending 12 days in jail!
After returning to Nepal, I sometimes worked as an Assistant and Translator to my journalist friend Pete Pattisson, in an effort to do my bit providing a voice for the voiceless. The following video, detailing the suffering of a fellow Nepalese, was shot on a trip to Janakpur Pete and I made in November, 2013.
He was one of the lucky ones to escape with his life. Many aren’t that lucky.
For a while now, three or four dead bodies of migrants have been arriving on average at Tribhuwan International Airport EVERY SINGLE DAY. The death of the breadwinner plunges the surviving family into even more of a precarious situation. Worst of all, the dreams of their children, the innocent victims, are shattered.
TO ME it’s clear, beyond any doubt, that education freed me…twice: firstly from the shackles of birth in a low socio-economic background in Nepal, and secondly from a potential seven-year jail sentence in Qatar! And, what is also clear is that education can do the same for fellow Nepalese.
Unfortunately though we still have major issues with our education system.
