Category Archives: Nepal

‘A bad dream’: Nepalis who made UK’s PPE speak out on claims of abusive working conditions

Posted on by

Glove manufacturer Supermax has repeatedly won NHS contracts during the pandemic, despite claims of forced labour. Now, a group of former workers are seeking justice

“I don’t have any dreams for the future because every dream depends on money,” says Resham, a 45-year-old from Banke, a district in Nepal bordering the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. “Time is passing and I’m getting older. Whatever comes my way, I will face it and go ahead with life.”

Last year, Resham returned to Nepal after spending 10 years working at Supermax, a company producing medical gloves in Malaysia. In October, the US banned imports from Supermax based on evidence “that indicates the use of forced labour”, and the month after, Canada terminated its contracts. The UK, meanwhile, has named the British subsidiary of Supermax as an approved supplier in a new £6bn contract for gloves for NHS workers.

Continue reading...

Fruit pickers lured to Portugal by the dream of a ‘raspberry passport’

Posted on by

Farm workers from south Asia describe exploitative conditions at the heart of Europe’s soft fruits industry

Three days after Sagar* arrived as a worker in Portugal from Nepal, he began to worry he had made a terrible mistake. “I had expectations to get good work, good money,” he says. “But the reality was different.”

The only job Sagar, 21, could find was on one of the country’s berry farms in Odemira, a rural region on the south-west coast. Earning less than the legal minimum wage to work 16-hour days in 40C heat, he knows he is being exploited. But quitting could jeopardise his residency application – and that’s a risk he cannot afford to take.

Continue reading...

Workers paid less than minimum wage to pick berries destined for UK supermarkets

Posted on by

Exclusive: Workers in Portugal picking berries ending up on the shelves of Marks & Spencer, Waitrose and Tesco allege exploitative conditions

  • Photographs by Francesco Brembati for the Guardian

Farm workers in Portugal appear to have been working illegally long hours picking berries destined for Marks & Spencer, Tesco and Waitrose for less than the minimum wage, according to a Guardian investigation.

Speaking anonymously, for fear of retribution from their employers, workers claimed the hours listed on their payslips were often fewer than the hours they had actually worked.

Continue reading...

Kill the Bill and period protests: human rights this fortnight – in pictures

Posted on by

A roundup of the coverage of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Cambodia to Costa Rica

Continue reading...

Nepal hospital trials ‘life-changing’ treatment for leprosy wounds

Posted on by

Technique using artificial scabs made from a patient’s own blood could also help those with diabetes, say doctors

Doctors at a Nepal hospital trialling a new treatment for skin wounds say the technique, which mimics the scabbing process, has “enormous potential”.

Trials at the mountaintop Anandaban leprosy hospital, south of Kathmandu, have been promising, bringing hope to patients worldwide. It is hoped that the treatment will also help millions living with diabetes, who have an increased risk of amputation.

Continue reading...

The world on screen: the best movies from Africa, Asia and Latin America

Posted on by

From a Somali love story to a deep dive into Congolese rumba, Guardian writers pick their favourite recent world cinema releases

The Great Indian Kitchen

Continue reading...

Books that explain the world: Guardian writers share their best nonfiction reads of the year

Posted on by

From a Jacobean traveller’s travails in Sindh to the tangled roots of Nigeria, our pick of new nonfiction books that shine a light on Asia, Africa and South America

• Share your top recommendations for books on the developing world in the comments below

You Have Not Yet Been Defeated: Selected Works 2011-2021
By Alaa Abd El-Fattah

Continue reading...

‘The heaven of film-making’: how a Dalit orphan got to tell her own story

Posted on by

A gift of a camera inspired Belmaya Nepali to rise above poverty and abuse to make documentaries

• I Am Belmaya review

Belmaya Nepali’s life changed for ever when, at 14, she was given a camera.

The British film-maker Sue Carpenter had come to Pokhara, a tourist city in central Nepal, to run a photography project with disadvantaged girls living in an institution. One of those girls was Belmaya.

Continue reading...

‘Monsters at the door’: migrant workers trapped in UN Afghan compound

Posted on by

Security contractors among hundreds from the Philippines, India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka stuck without clear plans for evacuation

When Taliban fighters started to kick at the door of a UN compound in a northern province 250 miles (400km) from the Afghan capital, Kabul, Rajesh* was certain he was going to be killed.

The Taliban had taken control of the area on that day. Rajesh, a UN security contractor from India, hurried with his colleagues into an emergency steel-doored room. Before they sealed themselves in, they saw a group of seven or eight heavily armed men.

Continue reading...

‘No one comes here any more’: the human cost as Covid wipes out tourism

Posted on by

From Bolivia’s Lake Titicaca to wildlife tourism in Nepal, we find out how the crisis has affected people in four travel hotspots – and whether or not they want the tourists to return

In March last year, it was predicted that the global travel shutdown would cause international arrivals to plummet by 20 to 30% by the end of 2020.

Six weeks later, the UN World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) revised their warning: international arrivals could fall by up to 80% – equating to a billion fewer tourists and the worst crisis in the history of the industry.

Continue reading...

Nepal sees huge rise in maternal deaths as Covid keeps women at home

Posted on by

Health workers fear deaths could reach levels not seen this century as up to 90% miss check-ups and many opt for home births

Earlier this month, 21-year-old Lakhu BK decided to have her baby at home in her village in the far west of Nepal. She had feared contracting Covid-19 if she went to a health centre. She lost her life giving birth.

“I thought my daughter-in-law will die from [the] virus but did not think she would die from being unable to give birth,” said her mother-in-law, Pamfi BK, 50.

Continue reading...

Missing school: how art can help girls in Nepal get an education – in pictures

Posted on by

Some of the UK’s best-loved illustrators, including Axel Scheffler, Debi Gliori and Jackie Morris, have created artworks telling the stories of children in rural Nepal who struggle to get an education. The pictures are being raffled by the charity United World Schools, which has opened schools in the country.

All photographs by Navesh Chitrakar for UWS

*All girls’ names have been changed

Continue reading...

Deadly heat: how rising temperatures threaten workers from Nicaragua to Nepal

Posted on by

As scorching temperatures spread, the search for ways to protect against heat stress is becoming ever more urgent

William Martínez, who as a child worked on a sugarcane plantation in rural Nicaragua, learned the hard way what many in the US and Canada are now realising: that rising temperatures are costing lives and livelihoods.

Martínez, along with fellow villagers in La Isla, found himself getting sicker as he worked long, gruelling days in the fields under the beating Nicaraguan sun two decades ago. Workers at the nearby mill, which supplies molasses to alcohol companies, began to suffer kidney failure, and would be forced out of the workforce and into expensive and time-consuming dialysis. His father and uncles, addled with the same affliction, had died when Martínez was a boy, forcing him to join the workforce.

Continue reading...

Vaccine inequality exposed by dire situation in world’s poorest nations

Posted on by

Analysis: the failings of the Covax programme, logistical issues and governments’ own inadequacies are making a bad situation worse

Only 1% of the 1.3 billion vaccines injected around the world have been administered in Africa – and that comparative percentage has been declining in recent weeks. It is a stark figure that underlines just how serious a problem global vaccine inequity has become. But the answer for the developing world is not as simple as delivering more vaccines.

From Africa to Latin America, Asia and the Caribbean, the same issues have been replicated. On top of finding enough doses, there have been logistical difficulties with delivery, problems over healthcare infrastructure and, in some countries, public hesitancy towards vaccines.

Continue reading...

‘I had to step up’: Child labour in poorest countries rose during Covid, says report

Posted on by

Study finds children in Ghana, Nepal and Uganda in dangerous, exploitative work, with long hours and little pay

Gopal Magar’s father has had a drinking problem for as long as he can remember, but when Kathmandu went into lockdown last spring, it got worse. With five members of his family confined to a small room in the south of the city, tempers frayed and the 14-year-old saw his father beat his mother again and again. One day Gopal could stand it no longer. He fought back, and then fled, leaving his parents, and his school, behind.

Gopal now lives with his older brother on the other side of the city, and has swapped his classroom for a construction site. “I have fewer problems now, but I need to work really hard,” he says. He starts work at six in the morning and for the next 12 hours hauls sand, loads bricks and mixes concrete. He earns about £7 a day and sends some of it to his mother to help her buy food and pay the rent.

Continue reading...

Oxygen shortages threaten ‘total collapse’ of dozens of health systems

Posted on by

Data reveals Nepal, Iran and South Africa among 19 countries most at risk of running out as surging Covid cases push supplies to limit

Dozens of countries are facing severe oxygen shortages because of surging Covid-19 cases, threatening the “total collapse” of health systems.

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism analysed data provided by the Every Breath Counts Coalition, the NGO Path and the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) to find the countries most at risk of running out of oxygen. It also studied data on global vaccination rates.

Continue reading...

Mount Everest Covid outbreak has infected 100 people at base camp, says guide

Posted on by

Austrian expedition leader Lukas Furtenbach says the real number could be 200, despite official Nepali denials

See all our coronavirus coverage

A coronavirus outbreak on Mount Everest has infected at least 100 climbers and support staff, a mountaineering guide said, giving the first comprehensive estimate amid official Nepalese denials that the disease has spread to the world’s highest peak.

Lukas Furtenbach of Austria, who last week halted his Everest expedition due to virus fears, said on Saturday one of his foreign guides and six Nepali Sherpa guides had tested positive.

Continue reading...

Covid vaccines: India export delay deals blow to poorer countries

Posted on by

Efforts in Africa and elsewhere hit by decision not to export AstraZeneca jab until end of year

Vaccine programmes across Africa and much of the developing world will suffer big delays after the world’s biggest producer said it would not be exporting the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine until the end of the year.

“We continue to scale up manufacturing and prioritise India … We also hope to start delivering to Covax and other countries by the end of this year,” Adar Poonawalla, chief executive of the Serum Institute of India (SII), said in a statement on Tuesday.

Continue reading...

‘Urgent. Oxygen needed’: Nepalis mobilise to take charge in Covid crisis

Posted on by

Amid political turmoil and an overwhelmed health system, young activists are stepping up in response to the pandemic

A ping and: “ICU bed needed. Please it’s urgent.” Another ping: “Where can I find Remdesivir. EMERGENCY.” Ping: “Very urgent oxygen cylinder needed, patient at last stage.” The messages never let up; a constant stream of posts pleading for hospital beds, oxygen, plasma and medicine.

It’s not Nepal’s government helpline, but an online group set up by a 24-year-old public health graduate.

Continue reading...