INTRODUCTION
The cross-border labour migration of Nepal to India is one of the most persistent and customary systems of mobility in South Asia. Facilitated by the existing open-border regime, physical proximity, and strong socio-cultural connections, India-bound labour migration has served as a common livelihood strategy by numerous households more so in the western and far western regions of Nepal (Bhatt, 2023a; Sharma, 2024). In contrast to migration to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries and Malaysia where recruitment is channeled through the regulated agencies and contracts and formal state apparatuses, migration to India is usually done via informal networks and is usually not captured in the standardized documentation and registration systems (Bhatt, 2023a; Sharma, 2024). Such informality in structures not only influences the outcomes of the labour market but also the presence of migrants in the state protection institutions.
Although the migration discourse and policy arguments in Nepal have historically focused on remittances, household uplift, and national economic contribution, a certain body of literature is also warning that migration also exists in unequal labour regimes and may reproduce vulnerability based on poor bargaining power, informal contracting and poor protection (Sharma, 2024). Of most troubling concern and least studied in this informal avenue, however, is the so-called phenomenon of missing migrants, in which labour migrants vanish or lose contact over time, in between leaving families in a state of social, economic, and legal ambiguity. Although this is egregious, the fact of absent migration continues to be peripheral in the general studies of Nepal-India mobility and is seldom considered as a structural governance/political economy problem.
A. Missing migration in an open-border passage
The notion of missing migrants has been widely discussed in the world mostly in the context of dangerous illegal border crossings and crises settings. Nonetheless, non disappearance is also a feature of normalised labour corridors where mobility is a normal state and accepted by the society, whereas governance structures are ineffective and paper trails are inefficient. Migration in the Nepal-India corridor is characterised by migrants leaving their countries without any formal labour agreements and tend to find themselves in informal, fragmented labour markets in the cities where they lack a stable residence and enter employment through informal contractors or acquaintances (Bhatt, 2023a). In such a situation, traceability may quickly go wrong as soon as the communication stops. Families can only be aware of rough destinations (e.g. Delhi, Mumbai, Punjab), the name of a contractor, or the area of work- the information usually will not be enough to search methodically. Evidence which is policy oriented entails the argument that open-border mobility may continue to be institutionally invisible since it does not fit within the customary equipment of foreign job regulation. Even official Nepal labour migration reporting acknowledges the fact that labour migration takes place in various channels and that labour migration to India is institutionally different to those official foreign employment avenues (Government of Nepal, 2025).
Similarly, the literature about the Nepal India corridor highlights that this migration was long assumed and thus not taken seriously by policy, programming, and data systems (Sharma, 2024). Such circumstances provide a governance environment in which missingness may be more probable and more difficult to eliminate.
B. Families abandoned in long-term uncertainty
Effects of disappearance are not confined to the lost migrant; they are manifested within the households and community. The loss of one of the migrants has a twofold effect on the families; the families lose the anticipated income and are left with the consistent doubt of the whereabouts of the migrant. This incomplete loss usually leaves a chronic psychosocial load especially when the families fail to ascertain the existence of a migrant as still alive, wounded, imprisoned or deceased. The concept of ambiguous loss is the theoretical perspective that describes this condition with such a strong theoretical approach that explains ambiguous loss as unresolved absence in which the lost person is not only physically missing but also present psychologically (Robins, 2010). Ambiguous loss has been observed in Nepal in the context of the disappeared in the post-conflict situations, where uncertainty interferes with the process of mourning, making decisions, family roles, and social roles (Robins, 2010).
Despite the contextual differences, the psychosocial processes of unresolved absence are quite applicable in the context of the labour-migration disappearance, whereby, the families too, are in a state of being in-between the hope and the uncertainty. In addition to psychosocial damage, loss produces complex economic and administrative weaknesses. The poor-poor migration is often debt-based, i.e., the absence of a migrant can turn an investment plan into a deficit on the long-term. The loss of a breadwinner can compel families to work harder, eat less, enroll children out of school or sell property. The institutional aspect is also no better: without official evidence of death, or even official acknowledgment of years of disappearance, families cannot move property title, or benefit claim, or citizenship and inheritance. Nepal study of families of missing persons by the ICRC demonstrates that the problem of missingness leads to complex needs affecting not only economic survival but also psychosocial wellbeing and administrative recognition and that families tend to be unable to obtain institutional assistance (International Committee of the Red Cross, 2009). The insights play a significant role in conceptualizing missing migration as not a simple individual tragedy but a multidimensional governance and social protection issue.
C. What is the reason to target Kanchanpur and qualitative evidence?
Kanchanpur district has been chosen as a strategically important location to investigate missing migration due to its location in Sudurpaschim Province as a borderland district in which cross-border mobility has long been incorporated into the livelihood strategies of the residents of the area. According to the study of IndoNepal labour migration, there is a growing acknowledgment of the importance to record lived experiences by the communities of origin in the far-west, where the Indian labour sectors have been characterised by economic restrictiveness, insufficiency of employment, and reliance on the Indian labour market (Bhatt, 2023a, 2021).
A peer-reviewed article by Deepak Chandra Bhatt, which is based on evidence of Sudurpaschim, demonstrates how cross-border labour migration is affected by the livelihood pressures, and how the cross-corridor working environments and benefits vary (Bhatt, 2023a, 2023b). Notably to this paper, the outputs produced by Bhatt in the ResearchGate list are specifically dedicated to missing migrants and their families in Sudurpaschim, implying that the problem of missingness in the migration environment in the area is an empirical fact (Bhatt, 2019).
Nevertheless, there are currently limited accounts of Nepal-India migration at a lived-in scale, even though the majority of current accounts of migration focus on macro-level (flows, remittances, corridor characteristics) or policy-level issues, when it comes to the lived-in realities of families in the process of disappearance. Also, a qualitative design is especially fitting since the definition of the missing migration is uncertainty and incomplete information: narratives shift, memories are incomplete, and families keep on redefining events as time goes by.
Qualitative study will be able to describe the waiting experience of families, debt negotiation, network mobilization to search, institutional responses, and the management of changing gender roles and social status when faced with the long-term absence through FGDs, KIIs, and in-depth interviews (Robins, 2010; International Committee of the Red Cross, 2009). With this, also qualitative evidence is useful in explaining why it is important to conceptualize missing migration as structurally produced in informal labour regimes and not as an isolated deviance or misfortune.
D. Problem statement
Even after Nepal-India migration has become scaled, normalized, missing migration is poorly recorded, theorized, and poorly governed. This dependency of the open-border corridor on informal networks and oral contracts lowers migration costs to poor households but also compromises documentation, protection, and traceability of people (Bhatt, 2026; Sharma, 2024). In cases of missing migrants, families experience concurrent crises, such as economic shock, psychosocial distress based on ambiguous loss, and long term legal/administrative liminality, and institutional channels to follow them are disjointed and limited (International Committee of the Red Cross, 2009; Robins, 2010).
This paper deals with this issue by looking at the experiences of missingness at the household level, as well as how it is influenced by structural informality and gaps in governance within the Nepal system of borderline migration.
E. Research gaps
This paper addresses five gaps in the scholarship and policy discourse that are connected with each other:
1. Outcome bias in migration studies: A significant portion of migration studies focuses on remittances and the successful paths, not paying adequate attention to that migration collapse and extinction in unofficial routes (Sharma, 2024).
2. India corridor that has never been governable and quantifiable: Migration to India continues to fall outside of formal foreign employment frameworks, with little to no registering and poor institutional presence (Bhatt, 2023a; Government of Nepal, 2025).
3. Little qualitative data on migrants’ families: Although ambiguous loss has been the topic of study in Nepal in the context of conflict-era disappearance, few studies have used the same phenomenon to explain how labour-migration disappearance impacts families living in uncertainty (Robins, 2010).
4. Lack of integration of political economy and advantage: It would be necessary to bridge the gap between debt-financed mobility, informality of labour regimes, caste-based inequality, and governance gaps to an explanatory coherence of missingness and reproduction of poverty (Bhatt, 2023b; Sharma, 2024).
5. Specificity at the borderland level is not thoroughly developed: Sudurpaschim border districts are at the core of the Nepal-India corridor, but the literature on localized manifestations of missingness, tracing, and administrative implications has not been thoroughly developed in peer-reviewed literature (Bhatt, 2019, 2023a).
F. Research questions
Based on these gaps, the following questions are answered in the study:
1. What are the meanings and explanations of the loss of a family member in the Nepal-India labour corridor by the families of the migrants who disappear?
2. How do socio-economic changes change following disappearance (income, debt, food security, schooling and livelihood strategies)?
3. What happens with the redefinition of household roles and psychosocial wellbeing, as well as experiences that align with ambivalent loss as a result of disappearance?
4. How might families search to find the missing migrants and what governance impediments inhibit tracing and facilitation?
5. What are the structural factors that influence the circumstances in which missingness is created and maintained informality, documentation gaps, labour precarity and social inequality?
This paper, therefore, discusses the socio-economic, psychosocial and governance aspects of such a gap in the migration process in Nepal under an open border migration system using the lived experiences of the families of the missing migrant in the Kanchanpur district.
G. Contribution of the article
The article has an empirical contribution on the basis of qualitative household-level evidence collected at a border district where cross-border labour mobility is a normal practice but institutionally neglected. It adds conceptual value to conceptualizing missing migration as structural missingness created in the interaction of informal labour regimes and administrative invisibility. It adds to the policy discussion, by specifying possible interventions community/municipal registries, better referral pathways, bilateral coordination and mechanisms of legal recognition which might lessen the administrative suspension experienced by families.
LITERATURE REVIEW
The labour migration of Nepal to India is one of the classic cross border mobility regimes of South Asia. Although a fair amount of literature has been done on migration governance, remittances, labour precarity, and agrarian transformation in Nepal, the issue of missing migrants in informal labour corridors is under-theorized.
The review summarises five literature strands concerning the current research:
(1) Nepal India systems of cross-border migration;
(2) informality and labour precarity;
(3) caste, debt and agrarian political economy;
(4) gendered impacts and left -behind households; and
(5) ambiguous loss and disappearance.
These strands together give the conceptual basis of the understanding of missing migration as being structurally institutionalized in informal labour regimes as opposed to the individual tragedy.
A. Nepal-India Cross-border Migration of Labor
Transnational labour migration between Nepal and India has traditionally acted as a diversification instrument of households in the hill and far West of Nepal. As demonstrated by Seddon et al. (2002), foreign labour migration, such as that to India, had come to centre stage in Nepal in its remittance economy and rural survival tactics. Their view of political economy highlighted that the migration could only be seen in the wider pattern of underdevelopment and reliance on labour export (Seddon et al., 2002).
Thieme and Wyss (2005) also analyzed the migration patterns and remittance transfers in western Nepal, and found that seasonal and circular migration to India is a component of household risk-management strategies. Through their results, they depict the fact that migration tends to be incorporated within kinship ties and informal systems of labour instead of contractual systems. Even more recent scholarship points out the structural uniqueness of the Nepal-India corridor. Sharma (2024) asserts that the migration of India-bound has been assumed as a matter of matter of course in policy discourse and it is poorly institutionalized as compared to regulated destinations of foreign employment.
Likewise, Bhatt (2023a) shows that labour mobility across the border of Indo-Nepal is defined by the push and pull factors, insecurity in livelihood, and differences in working conditions across the border. Although cross-border movement has become normalized, however, the literature does not touch on the outcomes of collapse of migration pathways or the disappearance of migrants. Such a lack is impressive considering the fact that the corridor is dependent on informal employment as well as poor registration systems.
B. Informality, Labour Precarity and Gaps in Governance
The informality is one of the characteristics of the Nepal India labour corridor. Kern and Müller-Böker (2015) explain that brokerage systems and recruitment intermediaries in Nepal are located in semi-formal and informal places and generate uneven protection and fragmented accountability. They are portrayed through their work as a way of reducing entry barriers and at the same time diminishing labour rights and institutional traceability. Sunam and McCarthy (2016) place labour migration in the context of agrarian political economy, whereby migration is usually the result of structural rural change and not the desire of the people. They demonstrate the way in which labour migration can solidify but not eliminate poverty in the circumstances of precarious labour and debt-based migration.
Bhatt (2023b) records facts on the differences in working environments and benefit gaps in Indo-Nepal migration and reveals the way that informal labour markets subject migrants to wage insecurity, absence of insurance, and weak legal remedy. Within these cultures, the eradication can take place informally, which makes the pursuit of tracing institutionally weak. The migration governance literature also highlights the existence of unequal regulatory coverage. Although the migration policy of Nepal is managing the migration of gulf by licensing and documentation, India-bound migration is mainly not under the centralized monitoring systems (Government of Nepal, 2025). This asymmetry of governance is what can be called a nexus of informality-invisibility: migrants can cross the border unproblematically, yet they are hardly visible in terms of their institutionality.
C. Debt, Agrarian Change and Structural Vulnerability
Migration of labour in Nepal is closely connected with agrarian restrictions and forms of debt. Jaquet et al. (2019) reveal that migration also affects the land-use practices in the Nepalese middle hills, which depicts the structural interaction between agrarian fragility and the mobility choice. Migration acts as a reaction to as well as a factor of rural change. The particular study by Sunam (2014) addresses the issue of Dalit involvement in labour migration and suggests that exclusion based on caste influences the possibilities and the results of migration.
The Dalit households tend to engage in less-paid and more dangerous types of job, which strengthens structural vulnerability. Lokshin and Glinskaya (2009) give the econometric evidence that migration by men influences household labouring patterns and income structures, which implies that the migration also reallocates economic activities in households. Their analysis however, presupposes that the remittance flows will remain; little has been said about the effects of failure or disappearance of the migration process. Disappearance converts an expected income to the entrapment of debt when the migration is borrowed. According to Paudel et al. (2022), remittance and rural finance are interrelated, implying that instability in remittance flows may cause wobbles in the household credit systems. Missing migration cuts right across rural debt structures.
D. Gendered Effects and Abandoned Homes
The feminized effects of labour migration have been well recorded. As Maharjan et al. (2012) demonstrate, women left behind can acquire decision-making power but carry increased labour loads. In the same vein, Ghimire et al. (2021) discover that migration of husbands can increase the work of women in agriculture and household management. According to Gartaula et al. (2012), left-behind women have to deal with complicated socio-cultural norms and economically make ends meet. These results are essential to comprehend the amplification of gendered burdens by disappearance: women do not disappear under the assumption they are dead; they do not get remittances, which puts them in a social and legal limbo.
Kim et al. (2019) establish the direct relationship between migration and food security in rural Nepal. Food insecurity is escalated when the results of migration are erratic. The chance of a chronic deprivation rises significantly in the instances of disappearance. In spite of these insights, the current literature makes many assumptions that mainly assume continued contact or remittance. The particular state of long absence without assurance, missingness, has not been studied well enough.
E. Loss and Disappearance through ambiguous means
Prolonged disappearance can be analyzed through the prism of ambivalent loss theory, which is crucial to the conceptualization. According to Boss (2004), ambiguous loss refers to a scenario in which closure cannot take place since the absence is not yet ascertained. Using the framework in the Nepalese post-conflict situation, Robins (2010) shows the results of families of the disappeared having suspended grief, broken social roles, and constant uncertainty.
In spite of the fact Robins (2010) concentrated on the disappearance that is connected with conflicts, the psychosocial processes outlined, such as uncertainty, identity disruption, and administrative liminality, are directly applicable to missing migrants in labour settings. Similarly ambiguous are families of missing labour migrants: they are unable to grieve, remarry, transfer property, and claim state benefits without official recognition. The reports provided by International Committee of the Red Cross (2009) in Nepal also add to the experience of families of the missing individuals who face a combination of economic, psychosocial, and legal obstacles. But disappearance of labour-migration has scarcely been assimilated into this literature.
F. New Work on Missing Migrants in Sudurpaschim
Bhatt (2019) and further by Bhatt (2023a, 2023b) present the region-specific data on the issue of IndoNepal labour migration and can name missing migrants as the urgent problem in the Sudurpaschim Province. The focus of these works is that migrants who belong to economically vulnerable households are overrepresented among cases that are missing. But little has been done to examine family experiences in depth as a qualitative approach. This work builds the migration research of Bhatt in that the focus on the lived experience of the families of missing migrants was central and that political economy and ambiguous loss theories were incorporated.
G. Synthesis and Implications Conceptual
The analyzed literatures provide a number of important discoveries:
1. The migration between Nepal and India is informal and loosely controlled.
2. Agrarian change, caste inequality and debt structures are entrenched in migration decisions.
3. Migration causes gendered burdens when it breaks the stability of households.
4. There is ambiguous loss theory that describes psychosocial aspects of long-term disappearance.
Nonetheless, there is no unified model that links these strands together to describe missing migration as a structural missingness of informal labour regimes. This article combines informality, vulnerability and ambiguous loss literature to suggest that lacking migration is accidental, and it arises due to the interplay of:
• Informal labour markets
• Weak documentation systems
• Debt-financed mobility Marginalization (socio-economic)
• Poor coordination of institutions.
1. Skeletal Absence in Informal Migration of Labour
It is shown in Figure 1 that the absence of migration is structurally reproduced in the informal cross-border labour system in Nepal. Agrarian fragility, caste inequality, land fragmentation and poverty compel households to adopt labour mobility as a survival strategy and not as an opportunity. Restricted local labour, seasonal rural wage, and limited access to institutional credit also increase the dependence of cross-border labour in India. The open-border regime is a regime that facilitates mobility without compulsory registration, written contracts, insurance cover, and uniform recruitment practices.
Although this reduces the costs of immediate migrations, it also produces institutional invisibility. Due to the fact that migrants are not usually registered in centralized databases and usually depend on informal recruiters or verbal contracts, the records on the place of work, the name of the employer, and the residential address are poor. In the cases when communication is not successful due to phone loss, mobility at the workplace, exploitation, illness, and other inconveniences, the families do not have enough information to trigger systematic tracing. This invisibility is aggravated by fragmented bilateral coordination and a limited institutional mechanism where disappearance can be done without administrative accountability.
The absence of migration at that time causes ripple effect household effects such as debt, income deprivation, food insecurity, gendered workloads, psychosocial misery that is in line with ambiguous loss and long periods of legal ambiguity. These impacts devalue the house assets, interrupt the education of the children and entrench poverty. Constant deprivation, in its turn triggers further reliance on repeated informal migration, which generates a self-reinforcing cycle of structural missingness, entrenched into the politics of borderland labour mobility.
Figure 1
Conceptual Framework: Structural Missingness in Informal Labour Migration
STRUCTURAL CONTEXT
(Poverty, Caste Inequality, Agrarian Fragility)
│ ▼ INFORMAL LABOUR MIGRATION
(Open Border, No Registration, Verbal Contracts,
Debt-Financed Mobility, Informal Recruitment)
│ ▼ ADMINISTRATIVE INVISIBILITY
(No Database Entry, Weak Documentation,
Limited Institutional Coordination,
Poor Traceability Mechanisms)
│ ▼ DISAPPEARANCE (Loss of Contact, First-Time Migration Risk,
Spatial Dispersal in Urban Informal Sector)
│ ▼ HOUSEHOLD-LEVEL CONSEQUENCES
• Income Collapse
• Debt Entrapment
• Food Insecurity
• Gendered Labour Burden
• Psychosocial Distress (Ambiguous Loss)
• Legal Liminality
│ ▼ REPRODUCTION OF CHRONIC POVERTY
(Intergenerational Educational Disruption,
Asset Erosion, Social Marginalization,
Persistent Structural Vulnerability)
│ └───────────────┐ │ FEEDBACK LOOP ──────┘
(Continued Poverty → Renewed Informal Migration)
2. Theoretical Framework Structural Missingness in Informal Labour Migration
The paper contributes to developing a theoretical explanation of missing migration as a structurally generated phenomenon integrated in the informal labour mobility systems but not as an individual misfortune. The framework starts with the fact that migration choices are the product of a larger structural picture which can be defined as agrarian instability, fragmentation of land, marginalization based on caste and inability to get employment in the Nepal borderland areas. It is these structural inequalities that result in livelihood pressures that drive households into cross-border labour migration as a survival strategy.
Migration is, however, not solely aspirational; it has a strong entrenchment in the political economy conditions that are formed through uneven development and rural precarity. In this structural process, immigration into India is based on informality. The open-border regime between Nepal and India allows free movement without any requirement to undergo registration, written contracts, and standardized recruiting methods. Informal networks, oral contracts and community-based intermediaries are often used by migrants (Bhatt,2024). Although informality helps reduce entry barriers and direct transaction costs, it also undermines institutional regulation and employee protection. Informal mobile therefore forms structural weakness at the exit. Administrative invisibility results out of informality. India bound migrants are hardly ever registered in centralized data stores, and since information on employment is not documented, migrants are institutionally untraceable. Information flow in terms of destination is one-sided, recruitment patterns are unstructured, and bilateral coordination mechanisms exist between Nepal and India are weak.
This invisibility is not simply a demonstration of the gaps in the data; it is rather a systemic restriction of governance inherent in the open-border labour regimes. In invisibility becomes structural disappearance when there is a failure of communication between the migrants and the families. Without any records or documentation of employer information, tracking systems are scattered and very dependent on informal networks. Families have to rely on kinship relations, friends or local agents instead of institutional processes. The interaction between informality and invisibility, therefore, structurally makes disappearance possible. The last aspect of the framework is that of reproduction of poverty. Absentee migration has cascading impacts on households: debt, income destruction, food insecurity, school disruption, gendered labour, psychosocial insecurity and being caught between legal and illegal status.
Instead of causing an upward movement, disappearance locks in chronic vulnerability and can drive households to new informal migration as an adaptive response. Therefore a feedback mechanism is created where poverty leads to informal migration, informal migration leads to invisibility, invisibility leads to disappearance and disappearance leads to poverty. This conceptualization of missing migration frames missingness structurally as missingness, a condition that has been created through the constraints of political economy, gaps in governance and informal labour regimes.
Figure 2
Structural Pathway from Informal Migration to Poverty Reproduction
STRUCTURAL CONTEXT
(Agrarian instability, caste inequality, limited employment)
↓ INFORMAL LABOUR MIGRATION
(Open border, no contracts, debt-financed mobility)
↓ ADMINISTRATIVE INVISIBILITY
(No registration, weak documentation, limited coordination)
↓ DISAPPEARANCE
(Traceability collapse, fragmented search mechanisms)
↓ POVERTY REPRODUCTION
(Debt, food insecurity, gendered burden, legal liminality)
↺ Feedback Loop: Continued Poverty → Renewed Informal Migration
METHODOLOGY
A. Research Design
The research design used in this study was a qualitative exploratory research design to discuss the lived experiences, socio-economic factors and governance experiences of families of missing migrants in the Nepal open-border migration. Since missing migration is a subject which is marked by uncertainties, incomplete information and emotionally complex stories, a qualitative research design was suitable to elicit subjective sense-making, relationship and institutional processes that would otherwise be difficult to measure using survey questions. The paradigm that was used in the study is interpretivist which acknowledges that families build meaning of disappearance based on personal, cultural and socio-economic contexts. Instead of trying to measure prevalence, the study was intended to create a rich insight into the experience, perception, and coping at the household level of disappearance.
B. Study Area
This was done in Kanchanpur district, Sudurpaschim Province, Nepal. Kanchanpur is a borderland district that borders India and there is a historical intensive migration-prone area of circular and seasonal labour mobility. The open-border system permits free movement along the Nepal India line and as such, the district is a strategic location when it comes to observing the dynamics of informal cross-border migration.
Kanchanpur was purposely chosen due to:
• It has high rates of India bound labour migration.
• It has captured instances of lost migrants.
• The boundary nearness heightens the topicality of informal mobility and traceability issues.
C. Sampling Strategy
Purposive technique was used to sample out families of missing migrants. The selection of the participants was performed according to the following criteria:
• One of the members had gone to India to work. Contact was lost over an extended period of time (at least ten years).
• The extinction was yet to be determined. Ten families were picked to be engaged qualitatively.
Despite the small sample size, it is in line with the qualitative research methodology, which puts more emphasis on depth, richness of the context and thematic saturation as opposed to statistical generalization. Key informants (e.g., the local leaders, social workers, and representatives of the community) were also incorporated in order to triangulate the household narratives and those of the institution.
D. Data Collection Methods
Three qualitative tools complemented were used to gather data:
1. In-Depth Interviews (IDIs): Semi-structured interviews were held with the key family members (spouses, parents, or adult children). Interviews focused on:
• Processes of decision-making on migration.
• The surrounding conditions of disappearance
• Economic consequences Emotional and psychosocial experience
Attempts at tracing and institutional relationship. Interviews were of 60-90 minutes, which were recorded in Nepali or local dialects.
2. Focus Group Discussions (FGDs)
FGDs were held in collaboration with the families that had been affected and discussed common experiences, community perceptions, stigma, and general coping styles. Interacting in groups contributed to making comparative reflections and finding common structural themes across cases.
3. Key Informant Interviews (KIIs)
KIIs were done with local government, police officials and community leaders to know:
• There are current tracing systems
• Administrative procedures
• Legal impediments and Institutional coordination gaps.
Such interviews brought governance level insights and contextual household stories. The data will be recorded and managed using the following record.
E. Data Recording and Management
All interviews were done with informed consent and audio-taped where allowed. The field notes were kept to document non-verbal actions, contextual observations and reflexive thoughts. Audio recordings were verbatim transcribed in Nepali and later transliterated to English to be analysed. Cross-checking was done to maintain semantic consistency and preservation of the meaning of the translation. To ensure the privacy of the participants, the data were anonymized with the help of assigning pseudonyms and eliminating the identifying information.
F. Strategy of Data Analysis and Coding
he thematic analysis adopted in the study is based on the six steps applied by Braun and Clarke:
• Familiarization with data
• Initial code generation
• Searching for themes
• Reviewing themes
• Defining and naming themes
• Producing the report
1. Coding Process
A deductive-inductive hybrid method was adopted:
• Inductive coding gave the themes to appear naturally according to the narratives of the participants (e.g., emotional uncertainty, debt stress, institutional frustration).
• The conceptual framework (informality, invisibility, disappearance, poverty reproduction, ambiguous loss) determined deductive coding.
Codes were grouped together into wider thematic groups, such as:
• First-time risk and decision to migrate
• Debt and income collapse
• Gendered redistribution of labour
• Psychosocial uncertainty (ambiguous loss)
• Barriers in institutions and the law
• Intergenerational impacts
Manual coding of data in systematic matrix tables was done to find out the patterns, divergences, and recurrent structures linkages. The authors highlight that their study employed qualitative data collection and analysis.
G. Qualitative Rigor and Trustworthiness
The authors emphasise that their research used qualitative data collection and analysis. In order to guarantee methodological rigor, the following qualitative trustworthiness criteria were followed in the study:
1. Credibility
• Data triangulation (IDIs, FGDs, KIIs). This is done by: Members validation It is used to ensure that interpretation is accurate by ensuring that the members are being validated during the interviews.
• Excessive working on the field to establish rapport and contextual knowledge.
2. Transferability
Thick description of socio-economic and institutional environments to enable the reader to determine how this is applicable to other similar borderland contexts.
3. Dependability
Clear records of the sampling, collection and coding protocols. Storing of an audit trail that outlines decisions of the analytics.
4. Confirmability
Reflexive journaling in order to reduce the presence of researcher bias. Use of word-to-letter quotes to base interpretations on the narrations of the participants.
Although this study acknowledges limitations related to small sample size, reliance on family-reported narratives, and the absence of destination-side verification, several deliberate methodological strategies were employed to enhance the robustness and credibility of the findings. First, data triangulation was implemented through the use of multiple data sources, including in-depth interviews with affected families, focus group discussions, and key informant interviews with local officials and community leaders. This allowed cross-validation of narratives and helped identify converging patterns across participants and institutional perspectives.
Second, elements of member checking were incorporated during the data collection process. Researchers summarized key points during interviews and invited participants to clarify, confirm, or correct interpretations. This iterative validation strengthened the accuracy of narrative representation and minimized misinterpretation of emotionally sensitive accounts.
Third, prolonged engagement and rapport-building in the field enhanced contextual understanding and trust. Given the sensitivity of disappearance, extended interaction with participants helped reduce response hesitancy and facilitated more candid reflection on socio-economic and psychosocial experiences.
Fourth, an audit trail was maintained, documenting coding decisions, theme development, and analytical reflections. Reflexive journaling was used to acknowledge potential researcher bias and to ensure confirmability. Together, these strategies reinforce confidence that the findings reflect consistent and systematically analyzed patterns rather than isolated anecdotal accounts.
H. Ethical Considerations
Due to the sensitivity of the disappearance and possible emotional distress, ethical considerations were of primary importance. Informed consent was signed in writing and verbally. Participants were advised that they had a right to withdraw at any point. There was a good level of anonymity and confidentiality. Interviewers used emotional sensitivity and would stop the conversation in case of any signs of distress. No payments were made to support the participants in the study, but their contribution was very appreciated. Institutional research ethics standards and respect, benevolence and non-maleficence principles were also adhered to in the study.
I. Limitations
It should be admitted that several limitations exist: Small, intentional sample: Purposive sample. Data: Data are based on information reported by the family and there is no verification at the destination side. Retrospective Berry is prone to the bias of recall. Missing migrants have institutional records which are not complete and so they can not be triangulated. Nonetheless, these constraints are in line with qualitative exploratory research and they do not compromise the analytical importance of the deep contextual interpretation.
J. Methodological Contribution
By integrating household narratives with institutional perspectives and situating them within a structural vulnerability framework, this methodology enables the conceptualization of missing migration as structural missingness rather than isolated deviance. The qualitative design captures the relational, emotional, economic, and governance dimensions of disappearance—dimensions that quantitative surveys often overlook.
FINDINGS
These findings are structured into six themes in relation to one other, which illustrates the structural and lived aspects of missing migration:
(1) Migration as Survival Strategy;
(2) The Moment of Disappearance;
(3) Debt and Income Collapse;
(4) Gendered Burdens and Role Reconfiguration;
(5) Living with Ambiguous Loss; and
(6) Institutional Frustration and Legal Liminality.
A. Migration as a Survival Strategy
The participants always referred to migration to India as a need and not an option. The majority of migrants who were missing were first-time migrants who were forced to go because of the lack of employment, agricultural inadequacy, as well as the household debt. One of the wives of a missing migrant who was 38 years old elaborated further: “There was no work here. The acreage is limited and what we produce is not sufficient to last throughout the year. He had gone to India with the hope that at least we would be able to pay the loan and can afford food. Immigrants, based on the neighbour or relatives who often worked in India, often made their migration decisions. Nevertheless, the employment terms were unofficial and there was less paperwork. When contact was lost, often the family knew only a general area of destination (e.g., Delhi or Punjab), and so the family could not easily track them.
B. The Moment of Disappearance
Communication was interrupted in most instances. Families either claimed that the phone of the migrant was not reachable or that the contractor did not respond anymore. No written contracts or employer information added to the uncertainty. One of the parents of an immigrant who has disappeared said: After arriving at Delhi, he called once. The phone was then turned off. The name of the company and the very location are unknown. We only know that he went out with a village man. Some of the participants pointed out that disappearance happened in the initial episode of migration, which indicated susceptibility associated with lack of experience and networks.
C. Debt entrapping and collapse of incomes
The households involved in the process all said that migration was either partially or entirely debt-financed. When the disappearance happened leading to non-materialization of remittances, loan repayment proved to be a big burden. One participant stated: “We borrowed money to send him. The lender comes now with the monthly. We are surviving only on a day-to-day work, with no income. Some of the coping mechanisms reported by households include cutting down on the frequency of meals, liquidating livestock, pulling out kids in private schools or borrowing more. The anticipated economic boost of the migration turned into the long-term financial burden.
D. Gendered Burden and Role Reconfiguration
After disappearance, women were given greater economic and social roles. Besides the chores at home, they also participated in wage labour, negotiated debts and made agricultural decisions. A 35-year-old woman explained: In the past he made it a point to be in charge of external affairs. Now I go to the market, transact business with money, and even toil in other people’s professions. I have to do everything.” Women also reported social stigma and identity confusion when it comes to marital status despite the heightened responsibilities. Until they had proven death, they were not able to remarry and receive benefits bearing on widows.
E. Living with Ambiguous Loss
The emotional hardship of not knowing whether the missing migrant had died or was alive was repeatedly mentioned by the participants. It was too much uncertainty to make it close. One mother said: At least we could do rituals in case he was dead. But now we are always waiting. We hope every unknown call. Waiting was a state that created long-term anxiety, sleep disturbance, and emotional burnout. Children too had psychological problems as they would ask questions regarding the missing parent. Families said they were alternating between hope and despair, which is in line with the dynamics of ambiguous losses whereby there is no resolution of absence.
F. Institutional Frustration and Liminality of Law
The participants had low levels of institutional support. Although there were families that went to local police or ward offices, the process of tracing was not systematic and the success was minimal. A participant stated: We took the police to an office, where they wanted information that we do not possess. They did not have a speech, and replied it is difficult. Administrative problems were the other issues reported by families such as inability to transfer land titles, and difficulties in receiving social protection benefits without legal evidence of death. This established what can be called legal liminality, a state of administrative suspension in which there were neither rights nor responsibilities.
G. Intergenerational Implications
Some families claimed that children were being affected in terms of education because of financial scarcity. There are teens who started to work to earn some money at home. A participant noted: My son dropped out of school at the eighth grade. Now he is in the daily labour, on account of fees we cannot afford. This trend is an indication that disappearance is a contributor to intergenerational reproduction of vulnerability.
Table 1
Socio-Demographic Profile of Participants (N = 10 Families)
| Variable | Category | Frequency |
|---|---|---|
| Gender of Missing Migrant | Male | 9 |
| Female | 1 | |
| Age at Migration | 18–25 years | 4 |
| 26–35 years | 5 | |
| Above 35 | 1 | |
| Education Level | Illiterate | 3 |
| Primary (1–5) | 4 | |
| Lower Secondary (6–8) | 2 | |
| Secondary+ | 1 | |
| Caste/Ethnicity | Dalit | 3 |
| Chhetri | 4 | |
| Janjati | 2 | |
| Brahmin | 1 | |
| Duration Missing | 1–3 years | 3 |
| 4–7 years | 4 | |
| 8+ years | 3 | |
| Migration Type | First-time migrant | 6 |
| Repeat migrant | 4 | |
| Migration Financing | Debt-financed | 8 |
| Own savings | 2 |
Note. Information was collected during the information collection from missing migrants’ families (Field Visit, 2026).
Caste, Informality, and Structural Missingness: Deepening the Political Economy Analysis
The socio-demographic profile of participants revealed a notable overrepresentation of Dalit households among families of missing migrants. This pattern is not incidental but reflects the intersection of caste-based inequality with informal labour mobility and structural vulnerability. In Nepal’s socio-economic hierarchy, Dalit communities have historically experienced landlessness, occupational segregation, exclusion from formal employment, and limited access to education and credit (Karki & Bohara, 2014; Pariyar & Lovett, 2016). These structural disadvantages intensify reliance on precarious forms of migration as a livelihood strategy, particularly within informal cross-border labour markets.
Existing research demonstrates that caste stratification shapes migration pathways and labour market outcomes in Nepal. Sunam (2014) argues that Dalit participation in international labour migration often occurs under constrained conditions, where limited social capital and economic resources push households into lower-paying and riskier employment segments. Similarly, Karki and Bohara (2014) provide empirical evidence of caste-based income inequality, reinforcing how structural disadvantage shapes economic opportunities even beyond migration contexts. Pariyar and Lovett (2016) further highlight how caste discrimination remains embedded in socio-economic structures, influencing access to land, credit, and institutional resources.
The findings of this study indicate that Dalit households were more likely to engage in debt-financed migration, accept informal recruitment arrangements, and migrate without written contracts or documented employer information. Informality, therefore, does not affect all migrants uniformly; rather, it interacts with caste hierarchies to produce differentiated exposure to risk. When disappearance occurs, Dalit families often lack the financial buffers, administrative literacy, and institutional networks necessary to pursue effective tracing or legal remedies. Consequently, the cascading effects of disappearance—debt accumulation, food insecurity, educational discontinuation, and legal liminality—are more likely to entrench pre-existing marginalization.
From a political economy perspective, caste operates as a structural determinant shaping who migrates, under what conditions, and with what degree of institutional protection. The concept of structural missingness must therefore incorporate caste as a mediating axis of vulnerability. Informal labour regimes generate invisibility for all migrants, but socially marginalized groups experience compounded invisibility due to weaker embeddedness within state and market institutions. Missing migration thus becomes a mechanism through which caste-based inequality is reproduced rather than alleviated.
By integrating caste into the analytical framework, this study strengthens its argument that disappearance is socially patterned and structurally conditioned. Addressing missing migration requires not only improvements in documentation and bilateral coordination but also broader interventions aimed at reducing caste-based exclusion in labour markets, financial systems, and local governance structures.
Analytical Summary of Findings
The results indicate that the phenomenon of missing migration is not a single abnormal occurrence but it manifests in the overlap of informal labour mobility, poor documentation, migration financed by debt, and the lack of institutional coordination. Disappearance creates household effects on multi-layers levels: economic downfall, gender role reassignments, psychosocial uncertainty, administrative marginality and intergenerational exposure. These findings will be related to the conceptual framework of informality and invisibility and disappearance and poverty reproduction in the next section and placed in general political economy discourse.
DISCUSSION
This paper has explored the lived experiences of families of the missing migrants in Kanchanpur district in the open-border labour migration system in Nepal. These results show that eradication is not an individual tragedy but a structural consequence of informal migration, lax documentation, migration based on debt, and institutional disintegration. In this section, the findings are connected to the current literature and contribute to the development of the theoretical contribution of the study.
A. Informality and Production of Invisibility
The results provide a good ground in arguing that Nepal-India labour corridor is operating in a highly informal manner. Kinship networks and verbal agreements mediated the migration decisions, as there was little written record of migration and little information was known about the destination. This is consistent with empirical evidence provided by Bhatt (2025b, 2023a, 2023b) who has shown that Indo-Nepal labour migration is still structurally informal and involves unequal working conditions and institutions loosely controlling the migration process.
There is no institutional trace of the migrants, considering that there is no formal contractual relationships, no insurance policies, and no system of registration. Failure of communication makes it impossible to bring about systematic tracing of family. This proves the argument of Kern and Muller-Bocker (2015) that migration cost is lowered in the systems of recruitment that are based on brokerage and informal systems with the cost of protection and accountability. In this regard, invisibility is structurally facilitated by what is conceptualized in this paper as the informalityvisibility nexus. There is informality that reduces the barriers to mobility and at the same time, informality reduces the traceability in administration. This is one of the reasons why first time migrants in the study were especially susceptible: with no existing networks, no paperwork on their employment history, their mobility was readily absorbed into informal and no-paper employment markets.
B. Migration Failure and the Politics of Debt
The results of the study dispute mainstream discourses that represent the labour migration as a formulation of development. Though the remittances have been well known to contribute to the livelihoods in the rural areas (Seddon et al., 2002), this research paper points to the dangers involved when the migration patterns come to a standstill. Almost all the households involved had their migration financed through debts, which is in line with other larger studies of agrarian precarity and migration (Sunam & McCarthy, 2016).
When the migrants vanished, the expected sources of income were discontinued with debts outstanding. The observation supports the claims made by Paudel et al. (2022) that the migration and rural credit systems are closely connected. The absence of migration transforms what is supposed to be a risk-management strategy to a vulnerability reproduction mechanism. This dynamic promotes an interpretation of the political economy migration: migration is a result of structural inequalities (land fragmentation, low employment, caste marginalization), and disappearance only exacerbates the inequalities, instead of easing them. Rather than enabling upward migration, the absence of migration can entrench intergenerational disadvantage and poverty.
C. Gendered Reconfiguration and Social Suspension
In line with earlier studies of left-behind women (Maharjan et al., 2012; Ghimire et al., 2021), the research revealed that disappearance reinstates gender roles in a significant way. Women took on greater economic roles, negotiated debt and had to work as wage earners. But, contrary to the cases of households that obtain remittances, the families of missing migrants were burdened without a pay. In addition, there was marital ambiguity caused by disappearance.
Women explained that they were not widows, neither wives with current husbands. This is quite close to ambiguous loss theory (Boss, 2004; Robins, 2010) according to which, absence, unresolved, interferes with identity, social status, and closure of ritual. The widowhood in Nepal socio cultural setting comes with social acceptance and access to some benefits by the state. Conversely, the indeterminate absence causes legal and social suspension. Women are not able to remarry easily and they cannot access widow benefits and property right cannot be solved without death certification. Therefore, erasing leads to what this paper has called legal liminality, a state of houses that are in administrative stasis.
D. Psychosocial Implications: Ambiguous Loss in Labour Situation
The ambiguous loss in Nepal analyzed by Robins (2010) is very similar in terms of the emotional accounts of the participants. Families were in and out of hope and despair, and the missed calls, or rumours, could be interpreted as a possible sign of survival. Failures to establish death ensured no ritual closure and the long-lasting sufferings of the mind. Even though the theory of ambiguous loss has thus far been used in relation to disappearance of conflicts, this study shows how the theory can have applicability in labour-migration situations.
In both scenarios unresolved absence leads to long-term uncertainty, disruption of identity and long-term grief. Nonetheless, the disappearance of labour-migration is dissimilar since it occurs as a result of economic precarity, as opposed to political violence, suggesting the relevance of extending the ambiguous loss scholarship to the economic mobility systems.
E. Gaps in Institutional Fragmentation and Governing
Participants explained the lack of institutional response mechanisms. Detailed information requested by the police was not always pragmatic based on informal arrangements of migration. There were no missing migrant registries that were systematic in the local governments. It demonstrates wider governance asymmetries presented in migration literature: the foreign employment mechanism of Nepal offers regulatory control over the foreign destinations, whereas the India-bound migration is left mostly uncontrolled by the centralized regulation (Bhatt, 2025(a), Government of Nepal, 2025; Sharma, 2024).
The results indicate that extinction is not only because of the risk of each individual but also because of the gaps in the structural governance. Families do not follow institutional pathways and use informal networks instead of the bilateral coordination mechanisms or standardized tracing systems. This justifies the fact that migration is absent, which is a form of governance blindness in open-border labour regimes.
F. Towards an Architecture of Structural Missingness
When the results are combined with the literature, the main theoretical contribution of the study, which is the concept of structural missingness, can be supported. Disappearance is not accidental, but rather generated by the action of:
• Informal labour markets
• Weak documentation systems
• Debt-financed migration
• Social marginalization
• Lack of co-ordination among institutions.
This framework exchanges the current migration research by connecting the political economy, informality, and ambiguous loss into one analytical paradigm. The results reveal that there is a feedback effect: poverty causes migration to the informal sector; loss of livelihoods causes poverty; poverty causes reliance on new migration. Therefore, lack of migration will add to the proliferation of chronic poverty, especially in borderland areas that are already structurally disadvantaged.
G. Migration Studies Contribution
The research will add to three research arguments:
1. Migration Governance: It emphasizes India-bound mobility as being uncontrolled and inappropriately structured.
2. Political Economy of Migration: It demonstrates ineffectiveness of debt-financed migration as it can lead to inequality in eventualities.
3. Social Theory of ambiguous loss: It extends the understanding of ambiguous loss to a non-conflict situation in labour migration.
The study, basing the theoretical knowledge on the qualitative evidences of Kanchanpur, introduces the gap between macro-level migration debates and the life experiences of households.
H. Situating Structural Missingness in Global Perspective
While this study focuses on Nepal’s open-border labour corridor with India, its findings resonate with broader global scholarship on missing migrants and disappeared persons. Internationally, the literature on missing migrants has largely concentrated on high-risk border crossings, irregular maritime routes, and conflict-related disappearances, particularly in the Mediterranean, Latin America, and post-conflict societies (Mazzarelli et al., 2021; Robins, 2010). In these contexts, disappearance is often linked to violent border enforcement regimes, human trafficking networks, or political repression. However, the Nepal–India case differs in a crucial respect: disappearance occurs not at militarized borders or in overtly irregular migration routes, but within a normalized, legally open mobility regime. This distinction underscores that missingness is not confined to securitized migration spaces; it can also emerge from institutional neglect and regulatory absence.
Globally, research on missing migrants has emphasized forensic identification, humanitarian tracing, and psychosocial consequences for families (Boss, 2004; Mazzarelli et al., 2021). Yet less attention has been given to how labour informality and governance asymmetry generate disappearance in economically routine migration corridors. The Nepal–India case contributes to this literature by demonstrating that missingness can be structurally produced through everyday labour precarity, weak documentation systems, and fragmented institutional coordination rather than solely through border violence or political conflict. In this sense, the concept of structural missingness extends existing frameworks by linking disappearance to political economy conditions of informality and marginalization.
Comparatively, the Nepal–India corridor highlights how open-border regimes, while facilitating mobility, may inadvertently intensify administrative invisibility when regulatory systems are underdeveloped. This contrasts with European and North American contexts, where border securitization often generates visibility through surveillance even as it increases mortality risk. In Nepal’s case, disappearance is less about enforcement failure and more about governance absence. Thus, the study advances a broader theoretical implication: missing migration must be understood along a spectrum of governance configurations, ranging from securitized over-surveillance to informal under-regulation. Both extremes can produce disappearance, albeit through different mechanisms.
By situating Nepal within global debates on missing migrants and disappeared persons, this study demonstrates that structural missingness is not a geographically isolated phenomenon but a concept applicable to other informal labour corridors across South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America. The Nepal–India case therefore enriches global migration scholarship by showing how disappearance can arise from the intersection of poverty, informality, and weak institutional coordination within non-securitized migration systems.
CONCLUSION
This paper has explored the lives of families of missing migrants in the open-border migration system of Nepal labour migration through the lens of Kanchanpur district in the Sudurpaschim Province. The results show that the absence of migration is not a single fact but a structural consequence of informal labour mobility, lax documentation, debt-funded migration, and institutional disjointure. Although the process of migration to India is normalized and economically required by various households, the process is conducted to a large extent beyond formal regulations.
This informality in structure creates invisibility of administration which also leads to failure to trace when communication stops. disappearance thus becomes not only personal tragedy but a structural fault in an under-governing labour passage. On the domestic scale, disappearance has multi-tiered effects: loss of income, enslavement of debt, food insecurity, gendered workload, psychosocial distress in line with ambiguous loss, and long-term legal liminality. Such impacts are not limited to short-term economic suffering, which adds to the reproduction of poverty by the marginalized borderland populations across generations. Theoretically, this paper develops the concept of structural missingness, which connects informality, invisibility, and reproduction of poverty in open-border labour regimes.
It also extends the ambiguous loss theory to the labour migration conditions, where economic mobility systems may create the prolonged uncertainty in social and emotional aspects. To overcome missing migration, it is necessary to shift the focus of reactive tracing to preventative registration, bilateral coordination, and formal recognition procedures that minimize administrative suspension to the affected families. Loss without institutional reform will be a mystery that is yet to be noticed but is a repetitive effect of informal cross-border mobility.
POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS
Lack of migration in Nepal open-border with India is not only a humanitarian issue but a governance issue which needs to be addressed at multi-level. According to the study, the following policy recommendations are based on the study findings.
A. Implementation Considerations: Institutional Capacity and Practical Constraints
While the policy recommendations proposed in this study are grounded in empirical findings and are conceptually feasible, their practical implementation must be understood within Nepal’s institutional and resource constraints. Addressing missing migration requires not only policy design but also administrative capacity, intergovernmental coordination, financial allocation, and political commitment.
First, the establishment of voluntary pre-departure registration systems and municipal missing migrant registries will require investment in digital infrastructure, data management systems, and trained personnel at the local level. Many municipalities in border districts operate with limited technical capacity and constrained budgets. Without adequate training, standardized reporting protocols, and secure data systems, registration initiatives may become symbolic rather than functional. Therefore, phased implementation—beginning with pilot programs in high-migration districts—may enhance feasibility and allow procedural refinement before nationwide scaling.
Second, strengthening Nepal–India bilateral coordination mechanisms will depend on diplomatic engagement, cross-border administrative alignment, and clear jurisdictional mandates. Open-border mobility, while historically cooperative, lacks formalized joint tracing frameworks. Institutional reluctance, bureaucratic fragmentation, and differing administrative procedures across the two countries may slow coordination efforts. Effective implementation would require formal Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs), designated liaison officers, and defined communication channels between district-level authorities.
Third, legal recognition mechanisms for prolonged disappearance will necessitate careful balancing between safeguarding against misuse and ensuring timely support for affected families. Establishing evidentiary standards, waiting periods, and procedural safeguards will require legislative clarity and administrative oversight. Judicial and civil registration systems must be equipped to process such cases consistently.
Fourth, expanding social protection coverage to families of missing migrants entails budgetary implications. Targeted income support, debt relief schemes, and educational assistance programs require sustainable financing. Policymakers must consider integration with existing social protection frameworks to avoid duplication and ensure fiscal sustainability.
Finally, data integration across local governments, police records, and national migration databases demands interoperable systems and standardized reporting formats. Without coordinated institutional reform, missing migration risks remaining administratively fragmented.
Recognizing these implementation challenges does not weaken the recommendations; rather, it underscores the importance of incremental, coordinated, and capacity-sensitive reform. By situating policy proposals within realistic institutional contexts, the study enhances their practical applicability while reinforcing the argument that missing migration represents a structural governance issue requiring systemic response.
B. Introduce Voluntary Pre-Departure Registration of India bound migrants
Gulf bound workers are also not ordered to register prior to departure, which applies to India bound workers. A voluntary low-cost pre-departure registration system at the levels of municipalities or wards would go a long way to enhance traceability without limiting movement.
Key features should include:
• Basic identity information
• Target location and industry.
• Contact information of other persons or contractors who will be in the company
• Contact details in case of an emergency.
Registration must not be restrictive and should be rights-based, so that it is not a criminalization of informal mobility. To eliminate loss in case of disappearance, digital municipal database would be connected to provincial and national database to provide searchable records.
C. Municipal Missing Migrant Registries
Municipal Missing Migrant Registries Entail the registration of migrants who have effectively vanished from their homes and remain without documentation. Municipal Missing Migrant Registries Provide the registration of migrants that have practically disappeared out of their residence and are still unregistered. Missing Migrant Case Registries should be established by the local governments to register disappearance cases in an organized manner. However, now families report to the police or ward offices separately resulting in disjointed and uncoordinated records.
A centralized local register would:
• Recording date of disappearance
• Document last known contact
• Gather destination information
• Maintain follow-up status
These registries might be the initial level of institutional traces coordinated and offer some evidence on the subsequent legal recognition practices.
D. Nepal-India Bilateral Coordination Mechanisms
Since the migration process is open-bordered, migrant tracing cannot be done in isolation. The bilateral cooperation mechanisms must entail:
• Specific liaison desks at border districts
• Information-sharing procedures among district administrations
• Work with Indian labour departments and police
• Case referral across borders systems.
The Nepal-India working group on labour mobility can incorporate the unaddressed migrant challenges in the wider migration governance platforms (Bhatt, 2024).
E. Legality of Prolonged Disappearance
Legal liminality is one of the most urgent issues that have been determined during this research. Without formal death certification, families cannot avail themselves to inheritance rights, property transfers as well as benefits of widows. The government is supposed to establish a legal recognition system of long-term disappearance in line with the civil code in other countries. Families should be available of:
• after a certain length of time (e.g., five or seven years) and reported search activities
• Conditional legal recognition
• Social protection benefits
• Procedures pertaining to property and citizenship. This change would decrease administrative suspension and clarify to impacted households.
F. Social Protection of Missing Migrants Family Members
Families losing migrants suffer an economic shock just like those of widowhood or disability. Nevertheless, they are not specifically addressed as a vulnerable group in the existing social protection strategies. Policy options include:
• One-time income support schemes
• Restructuring of debts or subsidies of interest
• Scholarships of children to education
• Specific food security support
The identification of families of missing migrants as a vulnerable group in the local social protection systems would alleviate short-term suffering.
G. Financial Literacy and Awareness of Safe Migration
The community level of awareness must focus on:
• Documenting information about the employer and place of work.
• Often exchange location data
• Keeping records of identity documents
• Being aware of the dangers of unofficial hiring
Education on financial literacy would also help lessen over-debt-financing and encourage more planned livelihoods. The support networks exist in the community to deliver care to victims.
H. Community-Based Support Networks
The support networks are present in the community to provide care to the victims. Psychosocial distress and ambiguous loss are not clearly addressed but they are very important. Facilitating could be done by municipalities and civil society organizations:
• Peer support groups
• Counseling services
• Community dialogue forums Such efforts would aid in eliminating feelings of stigma and isolation of the affected families.
I. Improve Data Systems and Research
National migration reporting should incorporate India-bound mobility more systematically. Improved data integration between local governments, police records, and national migration databases would enhance institutional response capacity.
Future research should:
• Quantify prevalence of missing migrants in border districts
• Conduct destination-side verification studies
• Explore long-term intergenerational impacts
J. Integrate Missing Migration into National Migration Policy
Current migration policy frameworks focus heavily on overseas labour markets. The Nepal–India corridor requires explicit inclusion in:
• National migration strategies
• Labour diplomacy dialogues
• Social protection programming
Policy recognition would elevate missing migration from an invisible household issue to a formal governance priority.