Maya migrated to support her family, got shamed by her community

It’s been more than a dozen years since Maya Sherpa returned from working in Kuwait. Today she devotes herself to helping other returned female migrant workers readjust to life in Nepal. 

One reason why she's so committed to that work is because of the violent reaction she faced, not as a migrant in Kuwait but after she returned to her community in Nepal. 

My three takeaways from today's conversation are: 

• Women continue to be stigmatized as 'fallen' or immoral, and accused of sexual misconduct when they migrate to work; 
• Surprisingly, there is a class aspect to this – those women who can afford to migrate to Europe and America are seen to have fallen less morally than women like Maya who go to traditional labour destinations like Malaysia and Persian Gulf countries; 
• Governments in Nepal prepare great policies and plans, but deliver few of them.

This is episode 99! We want your ideas about how we should mark #100. Text us at the link in the show notes or message us on social. We're (at)nepalnowpod.

We have a newsletter! Check out the first issue and subscribe for the next ones. 

These episodes are linked to Maya's story—check them out: 

• Women migrant workers: Lift the ban and get positive
• Nepal unprepared to reintegrate women migrant workers

Chapters

• 4:57 Maya's challenges after returning to Nepal
• 9:17 Former migrants supporting other returned women
• 15:03 Policies and plans but little concrete support

Transcript

0:00

I don't have any regrets because I feel like the challenges that I faced after I came back those have been valuable for me. That actually motivated me. It was a good lesson for me in my life. Hi everyone. It's been more than a dozen years since Maya Sharpa was a migrant worker in Kuwait. And today she devotes herself to working with other returned female migrant workers helping them readjust to life in Nepal. Maya and other women living around her in Sunsadi district have registered a group with the municipal government. And in today's conversation, she tells me that part of the reason is because of the violent reaction she faced, not in Kuwait, but after returning to her community in Nepal. My main takeaways from today's conversation are that women continue to be stigmatized as fallen or immoral and accused of sexual misconduct if they've gone overseas to work. What surprised me about this especially is that that condemnation is unequal and there's a class aspect to it. Those who can afford to go to destinations like Europe and America somehow are seen to have fallen less morally than other women like Maya who go to the Persian Gulf or other more traditional labor destinations. My third takeaway from this conversation, which probably will not surprise you, is that governments in Nepal are great at preparing policies and plans, but not so good at delivering on them. Welcome to Nepal now on the move podcast. My name is Marty Logan. This is the show that talks to some of the hundreds of thousands of people migrating from this small country surrounded by global giants India and China every year. Today is episode 99 of Nepal now podcast, which makes me very happy and I'm asking you to send me your ideas for how we should commemorate the big 100. So you can text us by clicking on the link at the top of the notes to this show or you can message us on social where at Nepal now pod on all the channels except for X. Also we now have a newsletter. The first issue went out last week and there's a link to that also in the show notes if you want to give it a read and even subscribe. Also you will find in today's notes links to two episodes related to today's conversation with Maya about women migrant workers so you might want to check those out. Finally a quick note. We recorded this call on Zoom and it was a bit confusing. There were a few technical issues so the episode bypasses the usual introduction and I jump right into the question and now my chat with Maya Sharpe. I'm interested to know why you are still dealing with these issues of women who have gone overseas to work. Yes. So I'm still active in this sector even though it's been more than 10 years that I returned from abroad. Initially I also didn't know anything about organizing or working in such a group but when I came back I faced many stigma difficulties. You know people for women like us who have gone abroad to work, people blame us, they view us differently. I realized that and since I went through that difficulty myself I want to help my sisters who have gone abroad and it's only after I came back to Nepal that I actually realized the importance of being united and working together. That's why I'm still working here despite it being more than 10 years. Great. In a minute we'll ask you about exactly some of the work that you're doing now with other women on these issues but can you tell me yourself personally when you got back from working overseas what are one or two of the main challenges that you faced? What are some of those issues that you had to deal with? I faced so many challenges. I think the hardest of them all and very obvious was the opinion that the society had of me. They said like, "Oh I'm a fallen woman that I went abroad and I sold my body or you know that I was engaged in some illicit affairs especially for women like me who go to Qatar, who go to Kuwait and all these countries. They have a very negative view of us. They all think that we've sold our bodies or have done something, something, some work of that sort that we've degraded ourselves. So that was very difficult for me when I came back. People always viewed me in that light. The second difficulty I think was there was so much blame going on that they even incited my husband against me. They kept telling him, "Oh she is a fallen woman just lever and marry somebody else." So they even interfered with my domestic life. Yeah, those are some of the big challenges that I faced and because it was so difficult for me, I'm aware of what difficulty migrant women faced. So I'm working so hard to help my sisters. It has been a number of years now. Are you still personally facing the same challenges? I know you're working with other women to overcome these challenges but you yourself were you able to get past those things that people were saying about you and were you and your husband able to remain together and kind of oppose all of these things that people were saying about you. Yes, in the beginning my husband also listened to those kind of voices and he also suspected me but then I talked with him. We had a long discussions and I told him about the real situation out there that yes, some of the women do fall victim to sexual exploitation and sexual assault but most almost 80-90% we do not have to go through sexual exploitation even though the work is hard and I did have a very hard life out there but I was not assaulted and I also did not I was also not involved in any of those illicit affairs that the neighbors blamed me. So after I kept repeatedly persuading him and we talked a lot and then my husband saw the truth and even though initially there was some bitterness between us but now everything is resolved and we are still together and he understood me. Oh, okay, well that's great. I'm very happy to hear that and I want to ask you about the work that you're doing now. I understand that you're working within a group helping women who have more recently returned from a labor migration. Are they facing the same sorts of problems that you faced when you came back a decade ago or have the problems change? Compared to the past it's been more than ten years so definitely things have changed. Some there have been some positive changes. There is not as much stigma as it was when I had gone abroad but still this society cannot change all at once. So yeah, still we women migrant workers face so many allegations, so many blames. When people talk with us they talk in a demeaning manner. I've realized that but yes it has lessened to some extent. Okay, and so the women who come back, what are the main challenges that they face and how are you as a group able to help them or how are you trying to help them? The main thing that we do through our group is when there are returning migrants women in our community, we go to them, we talk with them and we tell them about our group and invite them to be part of our group and if they are facing any problem, then we try to address them together with her. And besides that we also do some orientations with the women themselves and also with communities. From time to time we go to the settlements or these communities around us and we do some awareness raising programs mainly about dealing with or reducing the stigma that is attached with migrant women workers. We through this program we try to convince people that women when they go abroad to work, they are not doing anything illicit or anything immoral that they are also honest worker and that the society should change the perspective of how the women who go abroad to work. So in this way we mostly do promotional and advocacy campaigns. I'm a bit surprised because after so many years I expect and I might be wrong that there must be a lot of women and many more than before around where Maya is living who are going to work abroad. Is that true? Are there many more going than when she went and isn't the community kind of getting used to the fact that women go and they come back and they are unchanged for the most part. They remain the same people when they return as they were when they left. Yes, definitely the number of women going abroad to work or any other thing is definitely increasing. But you know there's a sort of a class divide when it comes to looking at women who go abroad. People who are going to European countries or America or developed countries for such women and girls, the society diverse them like they are like oh they are going to these developed countries, there must be very good people and so you know everyone wants to contact them, everyone wants to be closer to them. But for us women who come from lower income strata we cannot go to European countries because neither our education nor our financial situation is so that we can go to Europe. Then we are always relegated to these kind of perspectives. If we are going to Gulf countries like Qatar or Kuwait or Malaysia because we don't have any other option we cannot go to Europe. But then they always say oh these girls of women have gone to Gulf countries then must have done something wrong. They have sold their bodies, they are these fallen women or they are these immoral women but for women and girls going to European countries they are always prey. So yes I think this problem still persists to this day and even though the number of us going abroad is higher I don't think the problem has been addressed that much. And the only solution that I kind of see is if the Nepal government comes up with policies and plans that actually are certain our safety, our job guarantee when we go to Gulf countries. On listen until those kind of policies are made and enforced by the government I think this stigma or this perspective of the society will still affect us women going to Gulf countries or other similar countries. That's interesting because I wanted to ask about government. I had a slightly different focus my question was going to be are local government officials do they play a role in helping women like Maya to try to change attitudes to try to get people to understand that women, most women who go abroad number one they have a good experience and they come home and they haven't been negatively impacted by working abroad and that they are the same people when they return. There's no reason for society to treat them any differently and particularly in a negative way. So that's just a long winded way of me saying is the government kind of playing a support of role in helping these women educate the broader community about the role of women migrant workers. Definitely the local governments and governments can play a role in supporting us. One thing that is positive is that a lot of laws regulations and policies have been formulated or drafted by the local government to help migrant women workers but unfortunately none of them have been applied in practice. So they have all these written rules and policies but I haven't seen any of them being implemented yet and we are here in speeches of political parties or even bureaucrats that they are going to do this but that is mostly limited in speeches only and maybe some things have been happening in urban centres or the city area but for our area which is very remote and very ruler of none of those actions or policies I haven't seen any of them. We sometimes visit the local government offices you know just because we hear in speeches good things so we go to their offices but we often return empty handed. We go to word, we go to our municipal offices and we have been so insistent that last year we were finally able to get 50,000 Nepalese rupees budget from the municipal office and with that we did a five day skill based training to our women migrant workers and this year also we have been visiting the municipal office, the mayor office constantly and we have also sent a proposal to the mayor for some of the work that we want to do and we are hopeful that we will be able to get at least some buzzed from the office. So my understanding from again reading a very short description of your migration journey is that you went abroad for three or four years to Kuwait I believe and you work successfully there you earned money, came home, used the money for very productive things at home so overall your experience was a positive one but given what we are talking about and the way you were treated after you returned I want to ask you do you have any regrets about migrating abroad to work would you do it again if you had the chance? I don't have any regrets because I feel like the challenges that I faced after I came back those have been valuable for me that actually motivated me it was a good lesson. For me in my life I feel like it helped me grow because when I faced those kind of challenges then I did not go back I instead sent my husband abroad so he went for foreign migration. If I had not faced those blames I think I would have again gone back and you know again done those kind of minial work and I would not have this opportunity that I have right now because after people said some things behind my back it gave me a motivation I've always wanted to do some sort of social work so that kind of acted like a catalyst then I started looking at some group or organization that I could work and then I found this group and I started working and mobilizing and now I feel like I'm in a good place in my life I've understood so many things I've worked I feel like I've done some positive contribution and I've grown my as a person so now looking back I don't look at those challenges as weaknesses I see them as something some lessons some motivation that spurred me so that I could make a better life for myself so that's why I'm happy right now at where I am and I don't have any regrets. I could ask many more questions but I think I'll just ask one more I expect that today she gets people who ask her about her experience and then want advice on whether I'm talking about women in particular who want her advice on whether they should go overseas or maybe she even has relatives younger relatives cousins daughters and nieces what does she say to them when they ask if they should go work overseas. I tell all of the women and girls who approach me that yes definitely go abroad I never say don't go abroad because as a women it is better for us to be financially independent and not to be dependent on anybody else but what I urge them all there was first learn some skill they must have good skill and then they also should learn the language of the place that they are going and then they also should be informed about the laws and policies some not all but some of the basic laws and policies that of that country because now it's an online digital age and everything is on the internet out good skill and expertise please don't go because it will be very hard but now it is easy to learn skill also it only takes time. Thank you very much is there any one final thing that Maya would like to say before we say goodbye? My last words would be us women who go abroad our family background is already poor all of us are struggling in our life that's why we choose to go abroad to those countries it's a lot of hard work and then we come back but then we face you know all of this stigma and all of these challenges that's why we've also created our group we call ourselves the Urza Silviman group and the main challenge here of course is again finance we don't have a lot of money you know none of us members are very rich and the local government the world offices they give us very small budgets so this financial concern of ours has always been our biggest challenge as a group to move ahead and then you know us women when we sit in in our meetings and then we do all of these orchestrating programs for example some of our friends the family members or their mothers-in-law school them like 'oh why are you just doing this time as you sit in a meeting and you blabber and you do nothing you don't do this household work you've gone abroad and then you come here and do nothing' so you know we face a lot of those kind of difficulties but if we had some financial support from anybody like what it is supporting us in mobilizing but you know anybody if there are any people or organizations out there who could help us financially then maybe we could also do some more solid work so that we could also change the perspective of these people so that we could so some positive results we've already done our skill-based training but maybe if we could do more such kind of training then people would see that yes we meant to do something productive and we're just not sitting here passing the time so yes I'd like to request through your program there's any source that we could go to that would lend us some financial support then and that would be great before we part I just would like to extend my gratitude to all of the staff from Warik, Rida Mamm, every other Mamm who have supported our son or the civil women in our journey I feel like it's because of them that I able to speak so well in public and now even I'm doing an interview with you Marty sir so I want to thank all the WOREC members and also to Marty for this interview thank you Dere Daniavad Maya Ji thank you very much best of luck thank you ma'am thank you so thanks again to Maya Sherpa for sharing her experiences about migration and life after migration thanks also to Sunita, Sulochana and others at WOREC for organizing this chat and to Heema Rai for interpreting Maya's words if you have any comments or questions suggestions you can email me at nepalnowpod(at)gmail.com thanks to everyone who listened if you're wondering how you might appreciate the show even more you can become a supporter for as little as three dollars a month and you don't need a credit card to do this contact me if you do not have one and you still want to help out I'll talk to you next time