After completing high school, I left Kathmandu for the United States to pursue a higher education. That was around 15 years ago and back then, most young people who left Nepal went to similar destinations in the “developed world.”
Not my cousin. He dropped out of high school and went to work in the Middle East. Close to two decades later he still works there, having just left Nepal for another two-year stint.
Rahel was confined for more than two years in her employer’s home in Beirut, 13 years ago.
She explained that for six months her only contact with any person outside her employer’s immediate family was through hand signals across the roofs to another woman. After some time she realised she could converse with some Sudanese kitchen workers in a hotel that backed onto her employer’s house. Through a sealed window she established her first verbal contact beyond that of the “madam’s” family, but she never saw their faces.
Sameer Khatiwada
By Sameer Khatiwada, Economist, International Institute for Labour Studies
When I arrived at Shah Jalal InternationalAirport in Dhaka on a recent trip, I could not help but notice the hundreds of Bangladeshi migrants returning from abroad, clutching their many over-packed bags – no doubt filled with gifts for relatives. Their look of pride at having found prosperity was hard to miss. Continue reading
