Panchthar, June 29 -- For years, the family of Birkha Bahadur Yongya of Oyam in Yangwarak Rural Municipality-3, Panchthar, lived with unanswered questions and empty hands. Birkha died in a road accident while working in Saudi Arabia six years ago. His body was repatriated, the mourning rituals performed-but compensation, which he was legally entitled to under Saudi Arabia's Social Security Insurance Scheme, never came.

It wasn't until last year, five years later, that his parents finally received the sum of Rs3.3 million. The breakthrough came with the support of Nepal's Safer Migration Programme (SaMi), a collaborative effort involving local governments, migrant resource centres, and the Nepali embassy in Riyadh.

Birkha's mother, Sukma...