Flexible labour or modern slavery - the flight to KL

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I have flown on public airlines many many times and I can quite honestly say I have never been on a flight like it. We were heading to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia with Air Asia on the first leg of the journey from Kathmandu, Nepal to Hanoi, Vietnam.



We had an interesting couple of days in Kathmandu seeing some sites and particularly enjoying the old town buzz South of the tourist ghetto of Thamel.



We wanted to arrive at the airport early to avoid the time stresses we had had at New Delhi when we had not anticipated local bureaucracies and inefficiencies. As we lined up for check in there were many young Nepalese men holding white folders. Many had Tshirts or baseball caps with similar logos such as SOS employment services or HR management Inc. it was clear that they were travelling out of Nepal for work.



The departure board said it all: Doha, Bahrain, Seoul etc etc. All the places that suck in migrant workers not just from Nepal but also from the likes of Sri Lanka, Uzbekistan, Bangledesh....



As we boarded the plane it was clear that Malaysia was also on this list. There were may be 10 Westerners/Australians flying down to the Indonesian hub and every other single seat was taken by a Nepalese man heading for what he had no doubt had be told was 'a promised land'. It was not a small plane, probably an Airbus 320, and there as I looked back down the cabin sat row upon row of 11 men (there were no women), their eyes blinking as they try to understand what they were seeing.



We had seen many examples of Nepalese families split by the need for the men to work abroad to support their families. Looking across the plane it was clear that the few who were Gurkhas, in the Singapore police or bodyguards for the Sultan of Brunei, and exceptions who had other professional jobs like Jagan in Japan, were very much the minority.



They chatted nervously and jumped up to look out the window whenever someone saw something. (We joined them once when the pilot pointed out Mt Everest still above us protruding through the clouds as we climbed to our cruising altitude.) It was clear most if not all had not flown before and their mannerisms betrayed the excitement of the new experience and lack of understanding about what lay ahead. As a parent you could not help thinking that the young ones, probably barely eighteen, were particularly vulnerable.



Whilst each company will undoubtably claim the mutual benefit of their offer I could not help feeling we were on some sort of modern slave ship (abetting without the historical conditions as they all survived the journey).



When we landed the best analogy was of lost sheep. At first they would not move passed the gangway not knowing where to go. When one went to the loo large numbers piled in behind.



We left them at the transit desk since we were not actually entering Malaysia. We funnelled off to the departure lounge to find soft seats (successfully) to sleep on until our early morning flight to Hanoi.



I was left wondering where each one found themselves. The trip was a stark reminder of how important it is for all these countries to find rewarding sources of employment at home. Unfortunately solutions, especially in the short term, are not easy to find.

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