Nepal Now: On the move
We're talking with the people migrating from, to, and within this Himalayan country located between China and India. You'll hear from a wide range of Nepali men and women who have chosen to leave the country for better work or education opportunities. Their stories will help you understand what drives people — in Nepal and worldwide — to mortgage their property or borrow huge sums of money to go abroad, often leaving their loved ones behind.
Despite many predictions, migration from Nepal has not slowed in recent years, except briefly during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. About 1 million Nepalis leave every year to work at jobs outside the country. Tens of thousands go abroad to study. Far fewer return to Nepal to settle. The money ('remittances') that workers send home to their families accounts for 25% of the country's GDP, but migration impacts Nepal in many other ways. We'll be learning from migrants, experts and others about the many cultural, social, economic and political impacts of migration.
Your host is Marty Logan, a Canadian journalist who has lived in Nepal's capital Kathmandu off and on since 2005. Marty started the show in 2020 as Nepal Now.
Nepal Now: On the move
The labour migration trap
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According to one of today’s guests, 1 in 5 working age Nepalis is overseas for employment at any one time. In 2019, the earnings sent home by these workers, known as remittances, totalled about $US8 billion, or 25% of Nepal’s gross domestic product, the economic value of its output.
COVID-19 hammered labour migration, and the lives of many Nepalis. Some remain stuck in countries far from home, jobless after being cast aside when local economies tanked and the Nepal government refused to let them fly home. Others walked or hitched rides, and were stuck in crude quarantine camps on Nepal’s border with India after the country locked down on March 24th. Those are just a few examples.
Yet even now, tens of thousands of Nepalis are preparing to leave their families and country, often for years at a time, to chase their dream of working abroad.
Today we’re going to try and make sense of all of this with Bijaya Rai Shrestha, Founder and Chairperson of the Returnee Women Migrant Workers Group and Ramesh Sunam, an assistant professor at Waseda University in Tokyo and author of the just published book, The Remittance Village.
Apologies in advance for any strange sounds: this was recorded remotely and Ramesh was in far-away Tokyo. Also, a note for those not familiar with Nepal – both Bijaya and Ramesh refer to each other as Bijaya-ji and Ramesh-ji, an honorific similar to saying Mr or Miss in English.
Resources
Shuvayatra app for migrant workers (in Nepali)
Music: amaretto needs ice ... by urmymuse (c) copyright 2018 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/urmymuse/57996 Ft: Apoxode
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Music by audionautix.com.
Thank you to Himal Media in Patan Dhoka for the use of their studio.
