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