One of the leading newspapers,The Guardian, reports the following news: Nepal’s department of foreign employment throngs with crowds queuing for the permission they need to migrate. “We process 1,200-1,500 applications a day,” said Chiranjibi Adhikari, the acting director of the department, sitting at his desk surrounded by stacks of dusty files. “So many want to go abroad for work. Even if they have a job here, they think they’ll get more money abroad. Migration is not good.

Even unskilled workers go outside, which leaves a shortage here, and if skilled workers go, Nepal will suffer. According to the department’s figures, the number of migrants leaving annually has almost doubled in the last five years to almost 400,000. And despite the stories of horrific suffering faced by migrants abroad, many here are returning to jobs they have held for years – a sign of the lack of opportunities in Nepal and the fact that for many Nepalese, migration works.

With the increasing migrants from Nepal to gulf countries, especially youngsters from rural areas, only the women, children and elderly are left behind in the villages with no one to take care of them. Whenever they face common or emergency health problems, most of them are not able to help themselves. Shockingly, this has included a sizeable out-migration of health personnel, especially doctors and nurses as well, to countries of the global North as well.