Kathmandu: An Amnesty International report said that rampant deception and extortion is taking place in Nepal's labour recruitment business, putting migrant workers at risk of forced labour abroad and leaving them with crippling debts. Amnesty researchers interviewed 127 Nepali migrant workers and dozens of government officials in 2016 and 2017 for the report “Turning People into Profits: Abusive Recruitment, Trafficking and Forced Labour of Nepali Migrant Workers.”
Almost all of the workers had been subject to some form of abuse at the hands of private recruiters, with some saying they being deceived about the nature of their work and been “traded like cattle”. James Lynch, Deputy Director of Amnesty International’s Global Issues programme, said: “All over Nepal, unscrupulous recruiters are getting away with destroying lives – illegally charging job-seekers exorbitant fees to get jobs abroad, and then abandoning them overseas when things go wrong. It is only when they leave Nepal that migrant workers find out that they have been deceived about everything from salary to working conditions. By then it is far too late and many end up with recruitment debts that may take the rest of their working lives to pay off. Migrant workers contribute nearly a third of Nepal’s GDP in money they send back home, yet the government spends a tiny fraction of its budget on their needs. It is high time that this equation changes and migrant workers receive the protection they are entitled to.”
Lifelong debts
Suresh, from Saptari district, told Amnesty how he’d borrowed approximately £1,950 from a local moneylender, at an interest rate of 36%, in order to pay a recruitment agent. He was assured by his agent that he would quickly be able to pay off the debt from his earnings abroad. But at the glove-making factory in Malaysia where Suresh was placed, he was sometimes unpaid for as long as three months at a time. When he did receive his monthly wages, they were £270 less than what the recruitment agency had promised. He could not leave the job or Malaysia because his employer had confiscated his passport when he arrived, and refused to terminate his contract.
Suresh repeatedly called his recruitment agency for help, but they never responded. When he finally managed to leave Malaysia two years later, Suresh had accumulated a staggering debt of around £4,150. Back in his village in Nepal, he makes between £40 and £80 per month – meaning it could take him as long as five decades to pay off his migration debts.
“The attitude of recruiters is about buying and selling people. And our people end up being abused, because the government does not prevent them from being traded like cattle,” said Suresh.
Migrant workers who had gone abroad before 2015 reported paying, on average, £1,050 to recruitment agents and agencies for their jobs abroad. This is around £430 more than the limit under Nepali law at the time.
No choice
In the absence of decent work opportunities at home, an increasing number of Nepalis feel they have no choice but to look abroad for work, with more than 400,000 migrating for jobs overseas every year. Job-seekers are exposed to a number of abuses by local agents and recruitment agencies. They are often deceived about the nature and terms of their foreign employment and cornered into paying illegally high recruitment fees. Recruiters often confiscate their passports and refuse to provide other essential documentation such as contracts and receipts.
