Like so many citizens in countries facing shrinking economic opportunities at home, many Nepalis have sought employment abroad, and international labor migration has become an accepted avenue for economic growth, both for the individual and for the nation. Nepal’s political and socioeconomic systems are in a period of transition, and the country is recovering from a series of national disasters, adding to the lure of potential foreign jobs. From 2008 to 2017, Nepal issued some 3.5 million labor permits to migrant workers, predominantly for travel to Malaysia and nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). In the last fiscal year alone, Nepal received remittances worth NPR 699 billion (USD 6.56 billion) from its citizens employed overseas, more than one-quarter of national GDP, the fourth-highest proportion in the world.

A system in which low-skilled workers must travel abroad to support their families, often with uncertain prospects at their destination, has inherent potential for abuse—from recruitment fraud, to wage theft, to human trafficking. Beginning with the 2013/14 fiscal year, Nepal’s Ministry of Labor, Employment, and Social Security (MoLESS), in collaboration with the International Labor Organization, the International Organization for Migration, and The Asia Foundation, has worked to support evidence-based policymaking and the creation of institutional structures to ensure the safety and security of migrants and their families by documenting national trends in foreign employment. In late April, MoLESS released their third periodic report, Labor Migration for Employment—A Status Report for Nepal: 2015/2016–2016/2017.

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