By Sadichchha Pokharel
Truthout | Op-Ed - Monday, 19 May 2014
A 24-year-old Nepali man queues by the boarding gate at Tribhuvan
International Airport in Kathmandu. Along with his 30 kg suitcase, he
carries a much heavier load - a $1,700 loan to be paid back to the
recruitment agency, pending school fees for his children, promised gold
bangles for his wife and hospital expenses for his aging parents. Doha,
Qatar, is going to be his big break, his chance to put an end to
generations of poverty his family has endured. Or so he thinks. Soon,
his hopes of realizing his dreams among the bright lights of the booming
foreign city are going to be replaced by the dark image of reality - a
dusty sheetless mattress in a stuffy overcrowded bedroom, a
cockroach-infested kitchen without clean drinking water, long hours of
unpaid work under a deadly 50-degree sun (122 degrees fahrenheit) and a
life of slavery. But he doesn't know that yet. The agency did not tell
him.
There are hundreds of others like him on the same queue, carrying
identical baggage, shiny green passports in hand. Every year, a
staggering 100,000 Nepali youth flock to Qatar
in search of a better life in the Arab nation. Many of them are tricked
by corrupt recruitment agencies that charge extremely high fees and
make false promises of a better future for the workers and their
families. In reality, most of these men and women are practically sold
to a kafeel, a sponsor, under the traditional kafala system
that binds workers to their employers. Their documents get confiscated;
they do not receive their wages for months; they are not allowed to
quit their jobs and are forced to live under appalling unhygienic
conditions. If they so much as ask for their wages, they risk getting
thrown into jail. Ultimately, these men and women end up being trapped
in a life of slavery miles away from home, with no means of escape.
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