Several years after his first stint as a migrant worker in the Gulf emirate of Qatar, 30-year-old Tanka Kumar Limbu of Morang district in southeastern Nepal, decided to try his luck working in Malaysia. With its relatively moderate weather and growing migrant population, the Southeast Asian country was touted as an ideal destination for Nepali workers.
A lean man with a face that breaks easily into a smile, Limbu's hard-earned Qatari riyals had helped him marry and settle down in a dusty village not far from the East-West highway. But he still had to win bread for his family of three, including a four-year-old son. However fertile, the tiny patch of land (about 1.6 acres) that he shared with his younger brother's family and parents was never going to be enough to support the increasing costs of his young family. A debt that he had taken for 'family matters' (he would neither explain why he took the loan nor disclose the amount) was becoming burdensome.
When he made up his mind to work abroad once again, Limbu sought advice from his friends, who recommended a broker based in Itahari, a highway town of neighbouring Sunsari district. In August last year, he handed his passport to Nabin Yonjan, who in turn deposited it at RR Global Job Tracker, one of over 750 licensed recruitment agencies in Nepal. A month later, he wired NPR 35,000 to the recruitment agency.
By forfeiting his passport to Yonjan and his money to the agency, Limbu entered a vast supply chain, the tentacles of which spread from far-flung villages to the capital Kathmandu, and onward to labour-receiving countries such as Qatar and Malaysia.