By Ashmita Sharma, Stephanie Bandyk, and Soni Khanal | Accountability Lab
In 2015, historic twin earthquakes struck Nepal and affected 14 districts with more than 8,790 casualties and 22,300 injuries. The Accountability Lab responded to an apparent gap between government bodies, civil society, and citizens by facilitating feedback loops that cycled information among community stakeholders through its mobile Citizen Helpdesks Platform. The model of mobile Citizen Helpdesks provides a framework to listen, collect, and interpret the concerns of communities, question, and validate these concerns with relevant stakeholders, and then disseminate the information back to the community. Over time, our community agents known as Community Frontline Associates (CFAs) have noticed a transition from earthquake to migration-related cases. Left with few economic opportunities in Nepal, citizens were moving abroad in pursuit of employment.
Today remittances makeup 31.3% of Nepal’s GDP. Gender disaggregated data for 2017 on foreign migration based on labour permits issued estimates 362,766 of these workers are male and 20,105 are female. At first glance, migration seems to affect men most. Yet, examining this more closely with a gendered lens reveals that migration, particularly in Nepal, holds significant implications for women.
Reframing these data sets through a gendered perspective has helped the Lab to identify key challenges for women and families — not just the men working abroad — and partner with organizations that can effectively support them in resolving migration-related issues. It is important that migration related policies focus on supporting the worker going abroad as well as his family back home. The Lab’s mobile Citizen Helpdesks connect citizens with partner organizations to assist with resolving these challenges. For example, one of the Lab’s CFAs recently received a case of a man who had had to Saudi Arabia as a migrant worker. The man’s wife was notified that he had died and she was left unsure what to do – where to retrieve the body nor if there was any government compensation available. The CFA, was able to build rapport and inspire trust with the family and by working with the Center for Migration and International Relations (CMIR) was able to help answer questions, return the body for burial, and help the wife to receive compensation from the Foreign Employment Promotion Board’s welfare fund. She was also supported in initiating the process for her children to access a government scholarship scheme.