TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS

Table 4.7 shows both annual flow and stock of foreign labor migrants by country of destination. The
flow of foreign labor migrants was more than 500 thousands in FY 2014/15 with an overwhelming
majority of males. The stock of migrants in between 2006/07 and 2014/15 has been calculated as 3
million having 2.95 million males and 75,000 females. In terms of flow or stock of migrants, four
countries stand out to be prominent: Malaysia (39%),Qatar (23.5%), Saudi Arabia (20%) and UAE
(11%).
4.3 Skills of Foreign Labor Migrants
Skill of the workers is highly associated with their wages/salary and security. Generally, it is the
unskilled workers who have lowest wages/salary and they are also at risk of exploitation and
trafficking. Nearly three in four Nepali foreign labor migrants are unskilled workers while another 12
percent are semi-skilled workers and there are only 14 percent of the total foreign labor migrants
who are skilled workers. This pattern almost holds for the FY 2014/15 as well (Table 4.8).
Table 4.8 Number of foreign labor migrants in FY 2013/14, Nepal
2013/14 2014/15
Male Female Total Male Female Total
Skilled 14.4 11.6 14.3 13.7 9.1 13.5
Unskilled 73.6 74.7 73.7 74.4 77.3 74.5
Semi-skilled 11.9 13.5 12.0 11.9 13.4 12.0
Professional 0.0 0.3 0.0 0.0 0.1 0.0
High skills 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0
Number of foreign labor
448,733
migrants 434,716 14,992 449,708 432,080 16,653
Source: Department of Foreign Employment (2014) Annual Report of FY 2070/71 (2013/14) and Annual Report of FY
2071/72 (2014/15) (Unpublished). Note the figure for total outflow of migrants is 512,887 in FY 2014/15 but information
about skills is available only for 448,733 migrant workers..
4.4 Remittances
Several studies suggest considerable development implications of migration for the origin as well as
in destination countries (Ratha and et al., 2012). The main channels through which migration
alleviates poverty and improves development outcomes are: increased incomes from remittances;
improved health care, education and nutrition; ability to smooth consumption (saving for retirement
life); and better access to finance for both recipient households and for countries. In Nepal,
remittance income has become one of the major sources of income at the national economy (Table
4.9). It contributes to 29 percent of the total Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Nepal and it is much
higher than that of other two major foreign earning sectors such as tourism (2.3% of GDP) and
foreign loan and grants (5.9% of GDP).
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