Stories of Origin is a new MR series of articles and interviews that explores the lived experiences of both returning and potential migrants and their families. In the concluding piece of a three-part series we address issues of recruitment and training. The deadly earthquake in Nepal and the large-scale loss of people, property and livelihood could mean greater vulnerability of the economically downtrodden. It has never been more critical than now for governments in both countries of origin and employment to clean up the migration cycle.
In the villages, there is a saviour and he is simply called ‘agent’. He takes on the garb of the bogeyman in global migration narratives. The corrupt recruitment agent preying on gullible citizens and packing them off to hostile shores.
The truth lies between the two guises. There has been little or no effort in streamlining recruitment agents in Nepal. Word on the streets is that the owners of the agencies are politically well-connected.
Countries of destination too often shirk their responsibility in curtailing trafficking. As far as they are concerned it’s a problem of and limited to sending countries.
Ka-ching! Economics trumps humanity
The reason recruitment agents have a free run is because about a fourth of Nepal’s $19.4 billion GDP is through remittances. According to the World Bank, in 2013, Nepal received $5,551,527,542 in personal remittances. This is not accounting for money transfer through illegal channels.
Little wonder the country is reluctant to rock the boat and jeopardise manpower export. There is little monitoring of agents and training centres, and migration is so widespread there are no mechanisms in place to reach out to remote parts of Nepal.
Laxman Basnet, General Secretary of South Asian Regional Trade Union Council, at a recent ILO event said 55% of households in Nepal were dependent on a migrant family member and their remittances.
This naturally takes the pressure off the government to provide for the citizens.
Yet, there’s an opportunity to arrive at the same results by making the process cleaner and more ethical, without preventing citizens from migration.
Somprasad Lamichane, a returning migrant, is a strong proponent of migration.
He is one of the founders of Pravasi Nepal Co-ordination Committee, which was conceived by five Nepali migrant workers in Saudi who saw a need for better education on safe migration. Between them, their wealth of lived experiences in both exploitation and success brings an insight absent from most other organisations run by 'experts.'
“The pre-departure training is not properly executed. Often they don’t even get training, just a certificate. Teachers have no experience. They just talk. It’s about how to go to airport, using toilet inside the aircraft etc. Also environment of destination countries. But it’s not categorised. Malaysia or Qatar or Saudi they all receive same training. In fact, they should receive orientation even before they get a passport. Not in the last moment before they leave the country. As it stands, during the orientation they are told not to pay agent without a receipt. This is futile. They arrive at training only after having gone through those processes.”
The training centre that the monitoring committee visited. A white board with instructions and no trainer in sight.
Every day 4,000 applications for passports are submitted. It is at this point that orientation should take place, says Somprasad.
Jitendra Jonchhe of Gefont (General Federation of Nepalese Trade Unions) has proof of how inefficient training centres are. He is on the recently set-up monitoring committee that tours districts to inspect training centres. There are 122 such centres in Nepal.
“Look at this photo. In this centre there were two potential migrants sitting in the room facing an overhead a screen with some notes on it. That’s the training they will receive. Not even a trainer in the room.
“The requirement is for 11 hours of training on procedures and processes in receiving countries. This is a joke.”
Recruitment agents are passport traders
Interview with Dr Ganesh Gurung, Nepal Institute of Development Studies
Dr Gurung believes that migration narrative should shift from victimisation to empowerment, because that is closest to the truth.
“We just finished a financial literacy programme for families of migrants. Linking this with how to save money. Important to involve spouses at the household level. There are informal systems of remittances – hawala etc – and we want them to do it in proper channels. The guess is 40% comes in through illegal channels.”
Dr Gurung also sees remittances as a tool to counter effects of climate change, especially in an agro-centric economy.
“This money is used to adapt to a newly created environment.”
He says it’s no longer about creating jobs, since that has failed. Unemployment rate in 2008 was over 40%.
“It’s about creating value chain, tapping into their current economic activity. Something practically beneficial for the families. For instance, producing and selling milk, they would get minimum profit. But if they work on processes and products, their profits would rise. Create co-operative and sell directly, doing away with middle-men and brokers.”
Some groups do attempt to do so informally, as we have discussed here.
Dr Gurung also underlines the importance of social remittances, that often goes unacknowledged.
No investment in returnees
“We only focus on financial remittance. We don’t talk about skill, knowledge and experience, because they are exposed to different environment, they are mature. They are right for entrepreneurship. This has to be capitalised.
“People focus on negative aspects only. But the number adversely affected is small… we need to focus on what can be gained.”
In his assessment, the Nepalese government is not focusing on opportunities with returnees.
[tweetable]“There is no enabling environment for returning migrants. No schemes. General fatalistic perception, nothing can be done here, so 90% want to go back as migrants.”[/tweetable]Even with those going abroad, 70% are unskilled as Nepal hasn’t assessed labour markets in receiving countries – a process essential to matching up worker skills.
“Of course, we can’t only send semi-skilled and skilled, unskilled lose opportunities. There’s a need for them as well. Need a combination. This has to be packaged.”
He comes down hard on recruitment agents and dubs them ‘passport traders’
“There are 1,035 recruitment companies registered, of which 600-700 are operational. Only one is known as ethical. And they are all based in Kathmandu, due to regulations.”
This centralisation has given room for unregulated manpower trade in rural Nepal.
Dr Gurung places equal blame on donors and NGOs for staying silent in the face of corrupt recruitment practices.
[tweetable]“The donors, in the absence of strong civil society, should play a stronger role. And they are failing. In their silence, they are compliant.”[/tweetable]G to G as an option
Cleaning up and introducing better practices in recruitment is an urgent need.
The EPS with South Korea, which is a G to G system, has resulted in much less exploitation. “Recruitment agents are obviously unhappy with this. Destination countries, especially in the GCC, should invest in our country. Be active in our training centres. Set the curriculum. Tap into our potential.
“Engage directly with us. Meet families. Meet recruiters. Try and understand the environment.”
In return, Dr Gurung says, these countries that are so dependent on foreign labour will get mentally well-prepared workers, increasing efficiency.
“This is also a way of loosening the stranglehold middlemen have over migration and migrants. Help households improve. Now the system enriches brokers, not workers. The gap between haves and have-nots is increasing.”
Gefont works with potential migrants and tries to educate them on safe migration. In their team are people like Dhal Bahadur who are returning migrants with far more knowledge than the trainers at the centre.
But this is not always easy. Gefont is a trade union. According to Gopal Ghimre the potential migrants don’t want to listen to trade unions. “They are brainwashed by recruitment agents. They’ve been warned not to interact with unions, as they would lose their opportunities.”
Somprasad says in the decade since his own migration journey, very little has changed. “There is no awareness. I was not aware eight years ago. They are not aware even now. Most potential migrants don’t know what a contract is, leave alone substitution or fake contract. They believe everything the agent says. About 60% are illiterate and they don’t know what’s written. Once they reach destination countries, they are surprised. Their expectations are so high.”
The business of recruitment
Uddav Shrestha is the director of Energy Overseas Manpower Company, which according to him is a small scale agency and should not be targeted.
He is nostalgic for an era – a decade ago – when there were fewer manpower agents and enough profits to ensure there wasn’t so much corruption.
“[tweetable]A decade ago employers used to come and recruit directly. Now they prefer doing it through their local agency. [/tweetable]We could also contact companies through yellow pages contact and ask them for requirements. Then employer would come here directly the first time, and be involved in the process. Once they trust us, we take care of interviews and placements.
“At the beginning there were just 10-20 agents. Now there are almost 1000 registered agents. Earlier worker would pay a meagre fee, employer would bear costs and by mobilising just a thousand workers a year the company could make profits, making US$300-400 per person. We were happy.”
Uddav says when companies in destination realised this was good money making business “they started local manpower agencies there. They take (fee) from employer and from us.”
In his analysis the problem of fees lies with manpower agencies in countries of destination, and problem of exploitation with employers.
“Employer manipulates the job demand data. They might have more than one company and shift workers around. So both job and salary will be different from what give here in the contract. Sometimes workers are homesick or ill and we can manage that. Not the first.”
Costs of migration is dependent on receiving countries.
“Qatar is an exception. They are strict so agents don’t charge much commission. The worker is not supposed to pay for visa or ticket.”
He doesn't see a problem if workers have to. “In the UAE for instance, they encourage workers to pay a portion of the migration costs. Say 40% of the visa fee and your joining ticket. Their logic is if you contribute to costs then you have invested in the company and will be loyal and will not run away. This is the company securing its interests. On completion of contract they would provide return ticket.”
He refuses to be nailed down on overcharging workers. “It would be very fortunate if employer pays for everything. The NPR70000 workers pay us, which is legal, it covers all expenses including passport, tickets etc. Within that our margin is also there. [tweetable]Most manpower companies are satisfied with 100-150 dollars per person. We have to make money, no? [/tweetable]Manpower agencies in the Gulf don’t pay anything.”
“Some workers accuse agents of overcharging more than the stipulated 80,000, over 100,000 even?”
“This is off track question (sic)… when they pay that much I assure you it’s not manpower agency eating the 150k. We are satisfied with much less. That much is charged it’s to make sure it’s good companies. It’s related to demand and supply…”
