When Pawan Kumari’s husband called one morning from Kuwait, where he had gone to work nine months earlier, there was no reason to worry. They would call each other two or three times a day and talk about how, if he could earn enough money, they would send their boys to a good school and pay off their debts.
On that day in January she was busy washing clothes, so her husband, Rajiv Kumar Ray, spoke to their two young sons instead. But when Pawan called him back, he didn’t pick up.
As the day wore on, she became concerned. She got a message to one of Rajiv’s co-workers, who said he had stayed in his labour camp, alone. He promised to check up on him after work. Pawan lay on her bed, staring at her phone, waiting for Rajiv’s call. It never came. When the co-worker reached the camp, he found that Rajiv had taken his own life.
“How can I explain the loss I have faced in words? We have lost our breadwinner. It’s devastating,” says Pawan, sitting outside her single room home in the district of Sarlahi, on the southern plains of Nepal.
Every year about 1,000 migrant workers from Nepal die abroad, most of them in the Gulf and Malaysia. While the deaths of migrant workers in workplace accidents and from heart failure have been well documented, suicides have received far less attention. And yet, among Nepalis working abroad, almost 12% of deaths are recorded as suicide.
Long periods of separation from families, debt, abusive working conditions, unsanitary accommodation, loneliness and a lack of social support services are all likely to be factors which leave workers vulnerable to severe mental health problems and thoughts of suicide, say experts.
Dr Pashupati Mahat, a clinical psychologist at the Centre for Mental Health and Counselling in Nepal, says mental health screening should be part of the checks migrant workers undergo before they leave. “The government should ensure migrants’ mental health is fine before issuing work permits,” he says.
In interviews with the families of 18 migrant workers who had killed themselves, the Guardian found that their deaths often came as a shock. In a number of cases, the worker spoke to a family member just hours or even minutes before taking their own life without giving any indication of their mental state.
Details of the circumstances of a death were often passed down through networks of co-workers and relatives – employers rarely contacted next of kin – leaving families confused about what happened, and in some cases, unsure whether their loved one had taken their own life or died by other means.
Like many of the bereaved, Pawan Kumari does not understand why her husband took his own life, but she knows who to blame.
When Rajiv left Nepal, he was already saddled with debt. A failed business venture and the high fees he had to pay a Nepali agent for the job in Kuwait meant he owed the equivalent of about £4,000 – a significant sum in rural Nepal.
His financial problems worsened when his new employer did not give him any work for the first month, which meant he was not paid. When he did start work, he received only 80 Kuwaiti dinar (£210) a month, far less than the 100 dinar promised in his contract. Then the company began to make unexplained salary deductions, according to two of his colleagues.
They claimed that workers organised a protest, but little changed. After the protest, the company supervisor allegedly took Rajiv’s ID card, possibly suspecting he was the ringleader. Without ID, Rajiv could not work and as the company had confiscated his passport on arrival, nor could he return home. The company said Rajiv was fired after being caught drinking alcohol, a claim a colleague strongly denied.
“If the company was not deducting money, if it paid a good salary, I don’t think he would have committed suicide. I think it’s the company’s fault,” Pawan says.
Rajiv’s employer provided evidence to the Guardian to show that his “financial dues”, including repatriation fees, had been paid to the Nepalese embassy in Kuwait. Pawan says she has not heard a word from the company and is yet to receive his outstanding salary or any of his personal belongings, including a locket on a gold chain she gave him when they were married.
She is left with only confusion and her husband’s debts. “I’m still surprised why he did it. I knew he was under pressure because we couldn’t repay the loan, but he didn’t clearly mention anything to me,” she says. She has applied for compensation from Nepal’s Foreign Employment Board but worries that it will barely cover her debts let alone the cost of her sons’ education.
“I can’t even think about the future because I’m still coming to terms with what has happened. I don’t know how to provide a good education for my sons. Everything depends on money,” she says. “Who would want to leave their children helpless?”
In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255. In the UK, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14. Hotlines in other countries can be found here
