ABSTRACT
South Asia is currently the dominant source of migrants to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries (United Nations 2006). Migration from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh to the Gulf region can be traced back over several decades and even centuries. However, migration from Nepal, a small landlocked country nestled in the Himalayas, to the GCC countries, namely Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), is a recent phenomenon when compared to other South Asian countries. Evidence of migration to India for work from Nepal suggests that labour migration is not a new trend in Nepal; for centuries people have migrated from Nepal to different parts of India for low-level informal sector jobs ranging from construction to domestic work. However, only since the 1990s did international labour migration from Nepal to countries other than India begin, mostly to the GCC countries and Malaysia.
