International Labour Migration and Its Impact on Livelihood (A Study of Prithvinagar Vdc, Jhapa)

Abstract

The study under the title “International Labour Migration and its Impact on Livelihood (A Study of Prithvinagar VDC, Jhapa)” has been carried out with the view to evaluating the Nepalese government’s policies and programmes, consumerism of the emigrants’ households, incapability of the households in utilizing the remittance in the productive sectors and other matters related to the regulation and management of foreign employment. Simultaneously, this study, seeks to identify the issues and challenges created by international labour migration, nature of labour, migration trend and the number of socio-economic and demographic aspects related to the migration of Nepali migrant workers through the study of a VDC. Similarly, this study has also evaluated the internationally recognized policies and programmes to protect the rights of the migrant workers. House to house survey was conducted through the random sampling procedure. The data was collected through the questionnaire and direct interview with the respondents. Comments, suggestions and remarks of the villagers are elaborated through the tables and figures to draw the exact picture of the VDC. Emphasis is given on better utilization of the income from the remittance. The threats posed by international labour migration to the norms, values, culture and traditions of our society are also discussed. The emigrants’ families are economically better than those who are not going overseas for employment however they live separately for many years and they do not get close family affection and guidance. The emigrants become individualist and the rest of the members too are adversely affected by such notion. But the families who do not go abroad for employment live together with their members and get more close affection, guidance and caring however these families are economically weaker than the emigrants’ families. It is found that, migrant workers have faced problems both in the home country and the country of destination, whereas the problems in abroad are harder as compared to the problems in home country. Both qualitative and quantitative information have been incorporated to the completion of this study. So the trend analysis of Nepali labour migrants by fiscal year and the concentration of people in different countries in different period of time are also observed. Nepalese government policies are not able enough to properly VI implement rules and regulation for better management of international labour migration. At the same time Nepalese government has not done enough for the implication of international provisions to protect the rights of the migrant workers. Government mechanisms are not found very much effective to assure safe migration of potential labour migrants. Finally the study has concluded that the foreign labour migration can be regulated with the proper implementation of government policies and programmes. The foreign employment profession should also be accepted as a dignified occupation but the government should bring some measures to better utilize the remittance in the productive fields in our country so that it can boost the national economy and can also engage young people in some sorts of income generating activities even in the difficult period of the country. Flooding of Nepalese youths mainly in the Gulf and the West in the name of international employment has caused cultural degradation and now the true identity of all the Nepalese is at a greater risk. The habit of copying foreign culture and the livelihood pattern in the direct-indirect effort of the emigrants knowingly or unknowingly to replace our culture with the foreign one is dangerous from the view of national interest. International Labour Migration should not only help to upgrade the economy but also should help to protect Nepalese norms, values, culture, tradition and identity. Hence, the emigrants, the government and the stake holders should work together towards making foreign employment a strategy not only to earn for living and but also a strategy to promote national culture, norms and values in the international level and more than that a strategy to form capital for investment in productive sectors in the place of origin.