"The long and uncertain road from Nepal to Romania,"

Since joining the European Union in 2007, Romania has seen its workforce dwindle steadily. Given the right to live and work anywhere in the bloc, millions of Romanian nationals have gone abroad and, in doing so, helped fill labor gaps in the E.U.’s wealthier member countries. Today, however, Romania finds itself on the other side of the equation. Faced with a labor shortage of its own, Bucharest is turning to Asia to boost its workforce, recruiting tens of thousands of workers from as far away as Bangladesh and Vietnam...

... But securing the necessary paperwork is just one of the many hoops Nepali migrants have to jump through. In a dispatch from Kathmandu, Romanian journalist Radu Stochita reports on the time and money workers spend en route from Nepal to Romania — and what awaits them at their destination...

Indeed, would-be migrants like Batsa have to deal not only with Nepali bureaucracy, which at times involves paying bribes, but also with Romania’s immigration office, which has proven to be inefficient. Moreover, there is no Nepali embassy in Romania itself; migrants facing issues must contact either the honorary consul, who has no formal diplomatic powers, or the Nepali Embassy in Berlin...

But Romanian employers who have paid commissions to recruitment agencies are often loath to cut loose their employees...

Journalists found that some employers even confiscate foreign workers’ passports to keep them from changing jobs. The Romanian government’s recent amendment to the Labor Code has complicated matters further, prohibiting migrant workers from leaving their jobs during their first year in the country without written permission from their employers...

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