Last month, on the sidelines of the Non-Aligned Movement Summit, Nepal appealed to Russia “not to recruit Nepalese nationals into the country’s army and to help repatriate those who have already joined the forces”. According to data, at least 200 Nepalese youths have joined the Russian Army, with 12 already having lost their lives fighting in the war in Ukraine. In June last year, there were also reports that migrant youths from Nepal were joining the Wagner Group, the private military company involved in, among other conflicts, the Russia–Ukraine war. All these migrations have taken place through illegal channels as Nepal has no bilateral arrangements with Russia to provide soldiers.
So, the question is, what is leading these youths to such extreme migration patterns?
As with any case of migration, there are push and pull factors. For workers and their families, the potential to earn higher wages and gain Russian citizenship constitutes the major pull factors. Equally, the prospect of unemployment and low wages in their home country generates significant motivation to leave. The Indian Army’s Agnipath (Fire Warrior) scheme is also contributing to the illegal migration of Nepalese soldiers to Russia. Where the Indian Army used to recruit full-time Nepalese warriors, the famed Gurkha regiment, it now recruits through a tour-of-duty-style scheme that replaces permanent employment with four-year contracts and no pension benefits. With Nepalese authorities halting the recruitment program and demanding better terms, aspirants are seeking alternative employment avenues.
These alternatives include jobs that sometimes jeopardise lives, with migrant Nepalese workers suffering gross labour injustices and, in extreme cases, work-related deaths. A notable case is the labour injustices that occurred in the build-up to the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. Driven by the pull of higher wages, many Nepalese men migrated to Qatar to form a significant chunk of the labour force for tournament-related construction. Inspirational stories of the transformative nature of remittances sent back home often distort the outlook of these migrants who seek a better life for themselves and their families. But on-the-ground realities are quite different. Forced to work long hours in extreme weather and provided with poor living conditions, several migrants lost their lives.
In less extreme cases, such as migrant flows to Malaysia, Nepalese migrants often fall prey to exploitative networks. Many migrants pay extortionate “recruitment fees” to employment agencies, meaning they begin their work journey in debt or under disproportionate financial stress. As a result, employers enjoy significant leverage over the workers to exploit their rights.
Between 2019 and 2022, Nepal’s Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Security issued more than 1.1 million labour approvals for out-migration. The remittances sent by these workers form a key component of the Nepalese economy, with a record inflow of Rs1.22 trillion (approximately US$9.17 billion) in the 2022–23 fiscal year. However, these high remittances are accompanied by the increasing vulnerability and exploitation of workers abroad, and a worrying escalation in deaths. Close to 4700 Nepalese migrant workers reportedly lost their lives between 2019 and 2023.
The unfortunate reality is that the government in Kathmandu faces an insurmountable challenge in tackling the youth unemployment rate, which currently stands at 19.2 per cent. The figure seems even worse when one considers that close to 60 per cent of Nepal’s population is under the age of 30, suggesting that the out-migration crisis is only expected to worsen.
The increases in migration and exploitation highlight the need for greater regulation to ensure minimum working standards. A concerted effort to clamp down on unofficial recruitment agencies and extortionate “recruitment fees” should be the priority of the Nepalese government. The administration should also consider involving the many local non-profits and government agencies dealing with migrant labour issues as stakeholders in a broad public information campaign. Such a campaign could help to redirect workers towards official and ethical migration channels. Increased government-to-government bilateral engagement with major labour importers, such as the Gulf states and Malaysia, to multiply official channels for migration should also be prioritised.
Fighting to stay alive or, quite literally, dying to work abroad – whichever way you look at Nepalese youth migration, the picture is grim. Kathmandu might have limited capacity to redress the root causes of out-migration, but increased regulation efforts will certainly improve the outcomes.
