Nepal, Sept. 7 -- At Nepal's airports, immigration officers do not just check your passport-they check your purpose in life. If you are leaving for work, you must show a Labour Permit issued by the Department of Labour. If you are going abroad to study, you must present a No Objection Certificate (NOC) from the Ministry of Education. And if you lack those, your boarding pass is revoked, and you are sent back home.

It matters not whether you have a safe job at a Fortune 500 company or a full-ride scholarship to attend Oxford University. These rules apply to every worker and every student, without individual assessment. They are, in all but name, blanket bans-and they violate the very human rights Nepal has pledged to uphold.

A few years ...