Views of a Nepali Economist

Here's a good piece on exploitation of female labor force in Nepal. Some highlights from the article:

A poor economy and lack of opportunities are forcing more and more Nepalese women to leave home and earn money abroad as domestic workers. Separated from their own children to take care of other women’s children in the Middle East or America, many of these women are mistreated and exploited. Aware of the risks, tens of thousands continue to leave every year. Of the approximately 83,000 Nepalese women that leave the country every year to work for foreign employers, fully 90 percent are victims of exploitation or sexual violence, says a study by the Foreign Nepali Workers Rescue Center (FNWRC).

Remittances from Nepalese women constitute 11 percent of the total. However, these numbers do not take into account the massive exodus of women leaving through informal roads via border-free India and Bangladesh, especially en route of the Persian Gulf countries. This year, Nepal’s Department of Foreign Employment recorded only 23,000 women of the 2 million believed to be working in the region.

In June 2011, the International Labor Organization (ILO) adopted the Domestic Workers Convention. This is the first instrument that officially recognizes the rights of domestic workers, one of the most vulnerable groups of workers, around 83 percent of whom are women and girls and most of them migrants. Although no country has ratified it yet, its adoption represents a victory for nannies and housekeepers worldwide.

Even Gulf countries' news and social research sources have cited the abuse of Nepali female workers in that region. It's just that not much of that noise gets heard.Here are some excerpts from this source:

According to a press release issued by Nepalese Embassy in Saudi Arabia on Jul. 12, housemaids are sometimes sold from one master to another if they aren't satisfied with them. On Jul. 11, 15 women between the ages of 22 and 28 landed by a Gulf Airlines flight at Nepal's Tribhuvan International Airport. One woman was clad in a burqa (a veil that covers from head to ankles), torn slippers on her feet. She was clutching a big plastic bag, tears streaming down her cheeks. Shobha Raut (name changed) was weeping with joy, she says. "I was happy just being alive and I couldn't believe my luck," she told IPS in an interview at a local shelter for abused women, Paurakhi Nepal - a non government organisation working for the welfare of migrant women workers. "I can't explain it in words," she says. "It was living hell. They used to beat me so badly for everything. I used to sleep only two hours, and if I dozed off during the day, the men would kick me," she cries as she talks.

In 2002, UNIFEM initiated an Asia Pacific and Arab State Regional Programme on Empowering Women Migrant Workers (WMWs). The "Foreign Employment Act (2007) specifically calls for an end to all forms of discrimination based on sex in foreign employment and specifies provisions to protect the WMWs.

...in the absence of labour laws to safeguard domestic workers, their undocumented status, lack of information and skills, increase their vulnerabilities many times at different stages of the migration process: recruitment, entry, stay and work.

Here's a paper by the ILO(PDF document...right click to download)on overseas employment of Nepali laborers that sheds some light on the issue.

Here's a nice paper written for the UN (PDF document...right click to download)on the topic of women's migration in the Asian region. It covers a range of countries and a range of issues, including, but not limited to, the abuse of women laborers.