"Selling Girls in Kuwait": Domestic Labour Migration and Trafficking Discourse in Nepal

Abstract

The pace of economic globalization is accelerating, ironically, at a time when the movement of human capital is becoming more restricted. As the potential for legal migration is denied by states to would-be migrants, illegal networks form that place them at greater risk of exploitation. This paper examines a scheme by which Nepalese girls were trafficked to Kuwait to work as domestic workers, and how this was con structed as their immoral objectification by the Nepalese media and an anti-child exploitation NGO. I argue that discourses of national honour, which hold girl children as the legitimate objects of state protection places opprobrium on those who facilitate illegal migration and ignores the decision-making of the migrants and their families. A meaningful discourse on the nature of a new world order for migrant workers must bal ance risk and autonomy for all migrants, regardless of gender