Jamuna was fortunate that she did not have to endure exploitation at overseas workplaces like thousands of Nepali women workers.[break]
“I couldn´t save even a single penny from the handsome amount that I earned in Qatar and Kuwait due to lack of proper investment idea,” Jamuna said, adding, “I lost a huge chunk of my earning to unscrupulous land brokers and my own relatives who promised to repay in time. But they didn´t fulfill their promises living me high and dry.”
As if it were not enough, she paid Rs 1 million to a manpower agency that promised a handsome job for her husband. But neither her husband got the promised job nor she could recover the money paid to the agency.
“I spent five years each in Qatar and Kuwait where I had to work for as much as 22 hours a day. But the hard-earned money evaporated within a year, as I easily trusted others in financial dealings,” said Jamuna, who hails from Pokhara.
Jamuna is now associated with Paurakhi, an NGO that works for the welfare of overseas returnees who faced exploitation at their workplaces.
“I have not a single penny in my bank account and I am not in a position to pay the rent of my small room,” Jamuna, who lives with her unemployed husband and a three-year-old son in Maharajgunj, shared.
Jamuna visited different private firms hoping to land herself a job, but to no avail. “I couldn´t get job as I have low academic qualification and no job experience at all,” Jamuna, who studied till Intermediate level, shared.
Sarala Nepali, another woman who returned home after working as a domestic help in Cyprus, also has similar story to share. “I had to work as a domestic help, as the agency played foul by forcing me work as a domestic help instead of the lucrative job at a bakery as promised,” she shared. Even though, Sarala, who used to teach in a school, had managed to earn a handsome amount despite facing hardships at her workplace. But like Jamuna, she also could not utilize her earnings in productive sector.
Along with Jamuna and Sarala, over half a dozen women shared similar plight at an interaction organized on the eve of International Migration Day in the capital on Thursday.
Jamuna and Sarala represent thousands of overseas workers who have squandered their hard-earned money in the lack of proper investment idea. Instead of living a happy life after toiling for years in a foreign land, they are saddled with loans.
According to the government´s data, overseas workers remitted over Rs 209 billion during fiscal year 2008/09. However, the amount has not been used in productive sector to spur economic activity in the country.
Keeping in view the rising trend of using remittance income in unproductive sector, the government is doing groundwork to seek ways for proper use of remittance income in productive sectors.
Talking to Republica, Baburam Acharya, secretary at the Ministry of Labor and Transport Management, said the ministry had asked the International Organization of Migration (IOM) to assist the government for productive use of remittance income such that it contributes to national economy.
“It is high time we utilized the remittance income, which contributes as much as 19.1 percent to Gross Domestic Product (GDP), to generate employment opportunities,” Acharya said. “That is why we requested the IOM to help us search proper investment areas to utilize remittance income.”
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