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Commitment to Porters Rights in Nepal

By Gavin Bate

The unfortunate truth is that most western companies, unknowingly or otherwise, exploit porters and local people in Nepal because they pay 250 rupees per day for a man to carry 20kgs and more on steep trails in the mountains, often without insurance or proper clothes. Most importantly they then expect the porter to buy his own food and pay for his own lodging along the way, which amounts to at least 150 rupees per day. A porter can come home with a net salary of just 50 rupees per day on a 15 day trek - that is $10.

Sirdars or foremen earn even less - 150 rupees per day - and are expected to skim money from the overall budget of the trek to make up their salary. Since they cannot skim from clients' accommodation or food, they skim from the porters salary. A porter therefore can end up with less than $10 for 15 days work. No wonder they have come to rely so heavily on tips from clients.

It is also common for western companies to lie about their porter policy and use handy catchphrases like 'responsible tourism' without actually implementing it or even knowing what it really means on the ground to a farmer looking to make some extra income from the tourist dollar.

I have been campaigning for years to improve the lot of porters. I have lived and stayed and trekked in Nepal for nearly 15 years and I am the only western member of the Everest Summitters Club and I invest in my own company in Nepal rather than outsource. I pay 500 rupees per day to my porters plus a 150 - 300 rupee food and lodging allowance, plus I insure them and provide fleeces and rainjackets and boots. I pay my sirdar $20 per day plus 500 rupees per day allowance.

By doing this it adds a total of about £25 to my bill for a client on an average trek of about ten people to Base Camp of Everest. To me it is scandal that every western company does not do this, and yet you commonly see a trek price of over £2000.00. The question is: What price adventure?

Adventure Alternative employs fairly and we take a keen interest in the welfare of the people who make your holiday possible and more fun. Call it social conscience, whatever is fashionable these days, the fact is that the sirdar, porters and cooks are our friends, we visit their homes and support some villages through community projects.

I suppose it boils down to the reason you have an expedition company in the first place - for me it's a way of life and a love of Nepal and the fact that I have so many wonderful friends there with whom I've shared experiences as special as climbing Mount Everest.

We are charter member of Tourism Concern - www.tourismconcern.org.uk. We also promote the International Porter Protection Group and below is some information you really should read in order to understand something more about these people and what people like you and me - tour operators and trekkers - should be doing to make sure that our time in Nepal is affecting people in the right way. Tourism is important to Nepal, lets make sure it's ethically done.

What does employment do for local people in Nepal?

Employing porters is a great form of aid if done in an ethical way. It can lead to escape from subsistence farming. The more porters you employ, the better they can manage their life and crucially stay in their villages and not go to the big cities leaving the women and children to cope. Understanding the complex problems facing porters and interacting with them will give a new meaning to your trip. Don't be attracted to the cheap trips just because they are cheap - they're probably unregistered companies and the porters will be receiving next to nothing. Similarly beware the highly expensive trips, you could just be paying for lots of Western advertising and marketing, and not much when you get to Nepal.

In fact one trek is pretty much similar to another, it's just a selling game at the end of the day, the porters don't know if you've paid $5000 or $500 for your trek, as long as they get paid their wage and can go home to feed their family. The fact is that most of them get a pitiful wage and are discouraged to complain. Sirdars too, for fear of losing their job, don't talk about the fact that their 'job' is to skim the funds to make up their salary. And most western leaders just don't know any better. The trick, from a Nepalese company point of view, is to keep everything sweet and quiet, and offer low prices to western tour operators just to keep the business and the cash flow going.

I don't do that, I think it's deplorable practise. So help us help the porters and do read the below - much of which is courtesy of the IPPG material - so that you arrive in Nepal prepared!

Questions that we need to ask with regard to porters rights

1. Do we follow the IPPG's five guidelines on porter safety?
2. What is our policy on equipment and health care for porters?
3. What do we do to ensure the trekking staff is properly trained to look after porters' welfare?
4. What is our policy on training and monitoring porter care by its ground operator in Nepal?
5. Do we ask about treatment of porters in their post-trek briefing

Porters' problems

IMAGINE... carrying a heavy load up and down the mountains, all day long, day after day in all sorts of weather, sometimes only equipped with flip-flops for footwear and a plastic bag as protection from the rain...Trekking porters are often from the lower valleys. They frequently have to carry heavy loads in remote areas, sometimes higher than many base camps (well over 5000 meters) and with the potential for severe weather.
Do you know that porters suffer from more accidents and illness than Western trekkers? Every year, trekking porters die unnecessarily in the mountains. They may be affected by frostbite, accidents or injuries that may render them unable to work. Can you imagine the difficulties faced by dependants if a porter dies or can no longer work? There is no government social security in trekking countries other than the family.

Common problems are -
Lack of appropriate clothing and footwear
Lack of appropriate shelter
Lack of appropriate food
Lack of appropriate medical care
Lack of insurance

Apart from the above, life threatening issues porters also face are lack of education on mountain safety, environmental issues and hygiene/HIV/STDs. They also can experience homesickness when they are gone for months on end and may be more prone to gambling and binge drinking as a result.  They are often the meat in the sandwich of political upheavals and are usually discriminated against through race, social position or religious caste. Exploitation, often by their fellow countrymen, can mean poor wages and overloading.

Trekking ethics - the 5 guidelines

IPPG (International Porter Protection Group) recommends the following guidelines and they are adhered to by Adventure Alternative.

1) Adequate clothing should be provided to porters for their protection in bad weather and at high altitude. This means windproof jacket and trousers, fleece jacket, long johns, suitable footwear (leather boots in snow), socks, hat, gloves and sunglasses.
2) Above the tree line, porters should have access to shelter, either a room in a lodge or tent (the trekkers' mess tent is not good enough as porters are often left hanging around till dinner is finished), a sleeping pad and a blanket (or sleeping bag). They should also be provided with food and warm drinks, or cooking equipment and fuel.
3) Porters should be provided with the same standard of medical care, as you would expect for yourself, including insurance.
4) Porters should not be paid off because of illness or injury without the leader or the trekkers assessing their condition carefully. Sirdars must let their trek leader or the trekkers know if they are paying off a sick porter. Failure to do this has resulted in many deaths. Seriously ill porters should be sent down with someone who speaks their language and understands their illness along with a letter describing their complaint. Sufficient funds should be provided to cover the cost of their rescue and treatment. They should never be sent down alone.
5) No porter should be asked to carry a load that is too heavy for their physical abilities. Weight limits may need to be adjusted for altitude, trail and weather conditions. Good judgement and careful observation is needed to make this decision. And if you are going to a remote area, select strong and experienced porters!

In addition we pay our sirdars an appropriate salary commensurate with their experience and responsibility so they do not have take a 'slice' out of porters wages. All too often sirdars are told by unscrupulous companies that their 'salary' is as much as they can collect from the trek budget. The easiest way of getting that money is to take a cut of the porters wages and bribe them with the promise of future work. In essence the sirdar is forced to deceive in order to feed his own family!