One such case is of Ram Thapa who was told that he can get a job that would pay $1,000 per month in Afghanistan working as a security guard, which will allow him to provide better for his family. The recruiter demanded $3,900 to get Ram there, a sum that he had to borrow. When Ram arrived in Afghanistan two years ago, he discovered that the job he was promised did not exist. He was forced to wait for four months before given any work. Ram is still trapped in Afghanistan, working on repaying his debt without being able to send any money back to his family.

Those men are unable to escape their Afghani traffickers and Nepali loan-sharks and continue living in conditions that can only be described as modern-day slavery.

Contractors catering to foreign troops fighting in Afghanistan often employ migrant workers from the developing world.
Among those stranded was Subhedar Khandu, who paid US$ 3300 to an agent in return for the promise of a an $800-per-month job in the construction sector in Afghanistan:

“I took out a loan to pay the agent, who I met in Bombay. I thought I would get a one-year contact,” Khandu said.

Instead, when he arrived in November, he was locked up in a house with other labourers, given only one meal per day and no work or salary. When his visa expired a month later, the agent vanished and the men turned to their embassy in desperation.

“We were locked in a kind of camp for one month. This is much better but we have nothing to do still, we just sleep a lot.”

Many of those stranded were former construction labourers working in the Gulf states, who had lost their jobs as a result of the economic slowdown. These men would, in all probability, have had large loans to pay off in order to gain jobs in the Gulf in the first place, and taking a chance on the promise of a job in Afghanistan, whatever the dangers, may have been their only chance of repaying their debts and supporting their families back home.