Puja Thapa (NYU GSAS)| WOREC Nepal| Kathmandu, Nepal
Two weeks into the internship, I embarked on a journey last week of June to Province 1 in Nepal, one of the two provinces where the largest shares of migrant workers are from, as stated in the Nepal Labor Migration Report. Over the past three weeks, I have been conducting fieldwork in Nepal’s Morang and Udayapur districts. I have had the opportunity to engage and learn from stakeholders such as aspirants and returnee migrant workers, government officials, and staff from different organizations and projects working for safe labor migration in Nepal.
The past three weeks have been a great eye-opening experience. As a Kathmandu native with limited knowledge about the eastern part of Nepal, I have been captivated by the geographical and cultural diversity. I have had the privilege of hearing different languages, eating unique fruits and vegetables, understanding diverse cultural practices, and gaining insight into the lives of people for whom labor migration has been an inseparable part.
I am pleasantly surprised by the increasing awareness among individuals regarding safe migration information. However, it is mainly confined to urban or accessible areas leaving remote rural communities with marginalized populations reliant on a few unlicensed local agents as their primary sources of labor migration information. While the government and various national and international organizations have implemented effective initiatives to reintegrate returnee migrants, there is still a significant lack of sustainability, according to the locals.
Applying a gender lens to my observation, I have discovered that men are generally unaware of the social stigmatization that women labor migrants and wives of men labor, migrants, endure. Carrying forward the patriarchal legacy of stigmatizing trafficking survivors, women labor migrants still face questioning and judgment, resulting in limited social support for their reintegration and silenced stories. However, this circumstance does not capture the entire picture. Throughout my journey, I have unlearned my limited understanding of female leadership in Nepal. Women Rehabilitation Center (WOREC) Nepal has played a crucial role in empowering local and indigenous women leaders to take charge and address issues that directly concern them, including the stigma surrounding women labor migrants.
While these findings are preliminary, I am eager to return to Kathmandu equipped with the knowledge I have acquired. I intend to synthesize my experiences and academic learnings from NYU into an assessment report for the organization that will contribute to a better understanding of the situation.