A joint research and archive project of six Nepali and international organisations, ‘So Far From Home: Nepali Migrants Tell Their Stories’ compiles multimedia testimonies for evidence-based advocacy about migrant workers' rights.
Pic: Laxmi MurthyThe stories of 30 Nepali women workers in India’s informal sector is archived in audio, image, and text. It took 18 months to collect the life histories of the women from their home districts of Bardiya, Ilam, Jhapa, Mahendranagar, and Morang in Nepal and India’s Mumbai and Bengaluru where they had or have been working.
"We focused on India in this project because there are many of them there, but their stories haven’t been exposed well to mainstream media compared to the cases from Gulf or Malaysia,” said Renu Adhikari Rajbhandari, a medical doctor and women’s rights activist.
With the participation of non-profit archive library Madan Puraskar Pustakalaya, the project documented the oral history of female migrant workers in India’s informal sector which is not monitored by either Nepal or India. The project will be presented on- and off-line through website and exhibition. The opening of exhibition on December 8 will be followed by three panel discussions; Migration, Lives and Livelihoods, Women and Work, Media and Migrants.
The exhibition highlights the human face of the phenomenon of migration in South Asia and encourages one to look at how it affects people’s daily lives, families, communities, thus entire society. The rights violation cases along the labour migration cycle are not new in Nepal but it is still an important issue. Not only because the country’s economy is highly dependent on remittance but also because it is an issue of humanity, safety, security and dignity.
Seulki Lee
‘So Far From Home: Nepali Migrants Tell Their Stories’ exhibition:
December 8-10, at Nepal Art Council, Babarmahal, Kathmandu
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