Migration and health: Safeguarding Nepali youth workers in the Gulf in a changing climate

About the event

Jointly organised by the Ministry of Labour, Employment, and Social Security, NIDS Nepal and ICIMOD, the roundtable policy dialogue on ‘Migration and health: Safeguarding Nepali youth workers in a changing climate’ will convene a wide range of stakeholders including government representatives, technical experts, and civil society actors and facilitate a policy dialogue on the health risks of heat exposure among Nepali migrant workers in Gulf countries and identify practical strategies to safeguard their health and wellbeing in the context of climate change.

This policy dialogue focuses on Nepalese migrant workers’ exposure to extreme heat and its impact on their capability, wellbeing and functioning. It recognises the migratory and structural inequalities that contribute to the socioeconomic vulnerabilities of informal and precarious workers to heat in migrant labour destination, specifically the role the institutional conceptualisation of migrant health in contributing to their vulnerability. In this roundtable, we move beyond critiques such as ‘social determinants of health’ or ‘structural determinants of migrant worker’s health’ to conceptualise practical strategies that are needed to address the question of migrant workers’ exposure to heat and its impact on their health and wellbeing. Based on available evidence on the nature and causes of Nepalese migrant workers’ exposure to heat, we seek to develop practical interventions needed for health protection including access to health services. More critically, it engages in dialogue with the government and other key actors involved in international migration governance to co-design interventions to better protect migrant workers health and well-being.

In doing this, we become aware of the limits of behaviour change interventions that only work with migrant workers and thus seek to combine health education with wider sets of interventions at national and bilateral dialogues. Further, we also seek to expand the climate adaptation needs of Nepalese migrant population in various migrant destinations facing extreme heat stresses and explore ways to shed light in their plight among global community.

Objectives

1. Examine growing exposure of Nepali migrant workers to extreme heat in Gulf countries and its implications for their physical and mental health.
2. Identify practical measures to reduce heat-related health risks including occupational safety practices, health services access, and heat risk awareness.
3. Recommend key actions for national policies and bilateral labour agreements aimed at protecting migrant workers in a warming climate.

Expected outputs

1. Practical recommendations on behavioural and occupational safety measures for migrant workers can adopt to reduce exposure to heat stress
2. Identification of policy and programmatic actions that the Government of Nepal can take to better protect its migrant population in destination countries facing extreme heat conditions.
3. Recommendations on strengthening national and global advocacy efforts to highlight the growing exposure of Nepali migrant workers to climate change impacts, particularly heat stress, and promote international cooperation for their protection.

Expected participants

This roundtable will bring together a diverse range of stakeholders including representatives from key government ministries (Ministry of Labour, Employment, and Social Security, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Forest and Environment, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Health and Population). research institutions, NGOs, migrant worker organizations, returnee and current migrant workers, health and training service providers, civil society actors working on climate advocacy, and medical professionals.

Background

International labour migration exposes migrant workers to range of physical and mental illnesses and deaths that are structurally determined. Beyond their suffering in the migrant work destinations, including heat exposure and poor working and living conditions, many migrant workers are also tied to high interest debt back home for financing migration and are widely susceptible to deception or exploitation during recruitment, the weight of which does not just put them in weaker financial situation and loss of assets and dignity, but also leads to negative impact on their physical and mental health. Increasing temperatures further increase health precarity of migrant workers who are exposed to heat stress due to their work nature. Estimates suggest that as many as 10,000 migrant workers from South and Southeast Asia are believed to die in the Persian Gulf countries annually. More than 1 out of every 2 deaths is effectively unexplained and that migrant workers have intermittent access to healthcare services in destination places. Additionally, reports indicate that many migrant workers return home with heat related illnesses.

Young men and women from Nepal seek income and employment opportunities in the Gulf and Southeast Asian countries, often living and working in appalling conditions, with profound negative impact on their physical and mental health. Although these migrant workers undertake mandatory health assessment prior to departure, reports of high incidence of death, injury and ill-treatment among migrant workers in various destinations remains a major public health concern. This situation is further exacerbated by the climate change impacts in destination countries where even a small increase in average temperate can have severe consequences on migrants’ health including death. No mandatory medical assessments are carried out when these migrant workers return to their home countries leaving us with no prevalence data on their health. All of these clearly suggest a neglect for the healthcare needs of migrant workers.

This event part of the Foresight Intervention within the Strategic Group on Resilient Economies and Landscapes at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), funded through the Successful intervention pathways for migration as adaptation (SUCCESS) project by UK aid from the UK government and by the International Development Research Centre (IDCR), Ottawa, Canada as part of Climate Adaptation and Resilience (CLARE) research programme.