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Nepali exodus for overseas work

AFP, Kathmandu
Tej Man Prajapati's mother was inconsolable as she tearfully blessed her son on the forehead with red powder before he went through security at Nepal's scruffy international airport.
Prajapati was leaving to start a job cleaning factories in Qatar, one of hundreds of thousands who despite a new Maoist-led government promising radical change, see no future in the impoverished Himalayan nation.
"I voted for the Maoists, and I believe that they genuinely want to change the country," said Prajapati, 24, who expected to earn 430 dollars per month, a fortune in Nepal where the average annual salary is around 350 dollars.
"But the changes they talk about will take ages, and I can't afford to wait for them," said the man from a pottery-making caste, before he left to join around 200,000 of his countrymen already in the tiny oil- and gas-rich Gulf state.
Nepal's Maoists ended their bloody "people's war" two years ago, and after winning elections earlier this year, now lead the coalition government.
The decade-long conflict decimated the economy, and economists have said die cash sent back from overseas workers has been a major factor in preventing economic meltdown.
With at least one billion dollars sent back annually by 2.2 million overseas workers, Nepal is one of dozens of developing countries that depend on remittances.
But the Maoists ruling the country have vowed to stop the practice.
In their election manifesto the Maoists promised "circumstances which force Nepali youth to travel to foreign countries shall be ended".
After gaining power, they are finding that vote-winning rhetoric and economic reality are two different things.
"We realise we can't stop youth from going abroad for employment because we do not have job opportunities for them," Maoist spokesman Krishna Bahadur Mahara told AFP.
The Maoists say they will only act to stop the practice after they have delivered promised "revolutionary economic reforms".
"It will take at least nine or ten years before we can introduce policies regarding people working abroad," Mahara said.
Since the Maoists signed up for peace in 2006, the number of workers abroad has risen, with a 12 per cent increase in numbers leaving in the last financial year.
In the last two years around 400,000 workers have left Nepal, mainly for Gulf states and Malaysia.
As well as those travelling to work legally, tens of thousands of others have headed illegally to work in Afghanistan and Iraq, for high-risk jobs in the security and service sectors.
Former police officer Ramesh Singh Chettri recently travelled from Kathmandu to Kabul to restart his 750-dollar-a-month job as a security guard on a British military base in Afghanistan.
He is contracted for 16 months, to work 12 hours a day, seven days a week, with one day off a month.
"It can be a very scary job, and
it's very hard work," said Chettri, 31, adding that there are thousands of Nepalis working in Afghanistan and Iraq despite a ban on working in those countries imposed by their government.
Former British Gurkhas command the highest salaries but they are vastly outnumbered by drivers, cleaners and cooks seeking the illegal but lucrative work.
"There are no opportunities for me in Nepal. The best I can expect here is a 100-dollar-a-month job as a security guard," said Chettri.
Devendra Bhattarai, a journalist based in the Middle East for the Nepali Kantipur newspaper, estimates there are around 25,000 Nepalis working in Iraq alone.
"There are around 50 large American bases and we reckon there are around 500 Nepalis in each, "he said.
But even in countries that are not war zones, there are dangers for Nepali overseas workers.
"In the Gulf countries there are at least five or six Nepali migrant workers dying each week," he said. "Working conditions are often dangerous and there are a lot of bad accidents. Heart attacks due to the extremity of the climate are also common."
At Kathmandu airport as Prajapati said goodbye to his mother, he was aware that he faced a tough job, but was optimistic that his time in Qatar would provide him with a better future.
"I will think about returning only at the end of two years. I hope to buy a taxi or start a small business. Lt's not that 1 want to leave, but there is no choice."