The investigative report published by British newspaper The Guardian regarding the exploitation and inhumane treatment of migrant labourers building infrastructure for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar has stirred much controversy. Data from the last six years shows that nearly a thousand Nepali corpses have been returned from Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and Malaysia. The most common fate that befalls these young workers seems to be death while asleep, which is often construed as a cardiac arrest without even a post-mortem. While appalling, this material was not novel in itself.
The wave of outrage that exploded on social media over The Guardian report doesn’t seem to have rightly comprehended the issue. Though the report was published on the same day as another news piece on the undue influence of overseas employment (‘manpower’) agencies, no one seemed to raise questions about the illicit network of these agencies and their agents. Two years ago, a foreign employment report published by Amnesty International titled ‘False Promises’, cited similar migrant labour conditions as unearthed by The Guardian. Back then, manpower companies openly criticised the report. This single-minded concentration on the labour-receiving country, without paying any heed to the source country, is misguided. In addition to Nepal, many other South Asian countries, including India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Pakistan, are also source countries. All migrant labourers, regardless of the country they come from, are equally susceptible to heart attacks, forced and bonded labour. On the other hand, our manpower companies, their army of agents and middlemen are more responsible for the pitiful state of our labourers than the Gulf countries where they work.
Indeed, Arab owners often do not even know how many labourers they employ, what their pay is or what hardships they suffer. Besides, most international agencies are hesitant to speak out about the sponsorship system (Kafala) in Gulf countries including Qatar. Only now, with The Guardian report, is there attention on this exploitative system. Human rights activists from New York to Geneva cause a hue and cry about so-called child labour, forced labour, bonded work and Kamaiyas in Nepal but their queer silence on the Kafala system and human rights issues of the Gulf countries is disturbing, commented an official from the European Division at the Nepali Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Former Nepali Ambassador to Qatar Surya Nath Mishra has opined that Nepalis themselves are instrumental in tormenting Nepali labourers and entrapping them in bonded labour conditions. The Gulf countries, including Qatar, are providing employment opportunities for our unskilled and illiterate labour force but Nepali agents are misusing this opportunity.
According to Mishra, Nepali agents bear more responsibility than their Qatari counterparts in exploiting Nepali housemaids. If the 200 or so Nepali housemaids seeking shelter at the Nepali embassy in Qatar are questioned, no doubt the names of more than 180 Nepali agents and middlemen will emerge. Moreover, many highly placed Nepalis in the destination countries are themselves responsible for luring Nepalis over with big dreams. The Guardian does not seem to have explored this aspect of the grand design. Nepal signed Labour Agreements with many Gulf countries, including Bahrain, Qatar and the UAE, some time ago. However, there are no provisions in these agreements concerning the pending and stalled payments. Diplomatic missions in these countries are not even taught about the usefulness of the Labour Agreement and Nepali labourers, who are eager to fly based on false promises of big money, barely glance at the contract clauses and labour agreements. Hence, being assigned to the Labour Ministry or the Department of Foreign Employment have posed untold challenges for political leaders from Sarita Giri to Kumar Belbase. Even the President of the Nepal Association of Foreign Employment Agencies (NAFEA) Bal Bahadur Tamang, who albeit talks little about codes of conduct, has found himself under siege from compatriots.
Paradoxically, even the Foreign Employment Promotion Board is housed in a building rented from an agent, against whom legal action might possibly be taken, and the Department of Foreign Employment in a building owned by a labour attaché. A Department staffer concedes that this conflict is not normal but the Ministry of Labour itself seems ignorant of the repercussions of such an arrangement.
Meanwhile, a strange analogy was drawn between a statement by former Nepali envoy to Qatar Maya Kumari Sharma and The Guardian report. Sharma, who does not seem to know even the rudiments of diplomacy and who began her career saying that she was interested to serve in Burma, must have felt the great burden of serving in Qatar from the very beginning. Her statement, which referred to Qatar as an “open jail”, was endorsed on social media as being “right”.
To that line of thinking, I would like to refer to a lecture socialist thinker Pradip Giri gave during a recent trip to Delhi. Giri said that if you want to learn how to rule a country, you must read Junge Gita, edited by Kamal Dixit. However, this in no way should be inferred to mean that the autocracy of Jung Bahadur was right in any way. Sharma’s diplomatic faux pas is an example similar to the reading of the Junge Gita.
Bhattarai is Kantipur Publications’ New Delhi bureau chief
