New research by Amnesty International has exposed how the Nepali government’s failure to crack down on recruitment agencies which charge illegal fees for jobs abroad is leaving migrant workers trapped in a vicious cycle of debt and exploitation. The organization found that almost two-thirds of Nepali migrant workers who responded to a survey, carried out in Nepal and Malaysia and published today, had paid excessive, illegal recruitment fees...The vast majority (88%) of participants in Amnesty International’s mobile phone survey of 414 Nepali migrant workers reported that they paid fees to agents for their jobs overseas. Because these fees are so high, the majority had to borrow more than half the sum from village moneylenders, placing them in debt. Workers’ calculations about how they will repay these loans are often derailed by unpaid wages or other forms of labour exploitation. More than half of the workers (53%) surveyed said that they received lower monthly salaries than what was promised to them by recruitment agents...