https://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/32867 2026-07-21T22:46:47Z https://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/33594 Title: Banned to Death: Why must Nepal lift migration bans on domestic work? Authors: Bhagat, A Abstract: For over 25 years, the Government of Nepal has treated migration bans as its primary tool for protecting women who migrate abroad for domestic work. Since 2017, a blanket ban has prevented Nepali women from accessing formal migration pathways for domestic work, whilst since 2020 the ban has been conditionally eased subject to seven preconditions, the most consequential being a requirement that destination countries first sign a Bilateral Labour Agreement (BLA) in domestic work. This report presents cumulative evidence from three interdependent research projects involving more than 150 community members, 81 documented mobility stories, interviews with over 70 migration-sector actors, and 17 in-depth family testimonies relating to migrant deaths. The evidence demonstrates that the migration ban has failed on its own terms: it has not prevented Nepali women from migrating for domestic work, but it has reduced their access to legal protection, state support, and accountability mechanisms when harm occurs. The report finds that: · Nepali women continue to migrate for domestic work through informal channels, but without legal recognition, state support, or access to protection mechanisms. · The ban restricts the mobility of women from marginalised caste, ethnic, and low-income communities whose migration decisions are shaped by poverty and limited opportunities. · By pushing migration outside formal systems, bans increase exposure to deception, exploitation, abuse, disappearance, and death whilst reducing accountability. · Women migrating outside official systems remain invisible in state records, limiting their access to rescue, justice, and compensation. · Bilateral Labour Agreements (BLAs) in domestic work cannot substitute for enforcement, worker participation, access to justice, and effective Nepali mission-led protection systems. Based on this evidence, the report recommends replacing migration prohibition with a rights and dignity-based framework. The key recommendations are to: I. Immediately lift the ban and create accessible legal migration pathways for domestic workers; II. Protect Nepali women already abroad regardless of migration status, including through stronger embassy support, legal assistance, and emergency protection mechanisms; III. Reform social protection, compensation, and repatriation systems for migrant workers and their families; IV. Use Bilateral Labour Agreements as protection mechanisms rather than barriers to migration; V. Reform recruitment systems and reduce dependence on unregulated brokers; VI. Support returnee workers and challenge stigma associated with women's labour migration; VII. Strengthen accountability mechanisms and migration data systems to ensure migrant deaths, disappearances, and exploitation are properly recognised and addressed. The evidence presented in this report shows that migration bans have made Nepali women's migration less visible, less regulated, and less safe. Nepal's migration governance should move away from restricting women's mobility and towards ensuring that all migrant workers are recognised as rights holders entitled to protection, and accountability. Lifting the ban is the first step towards a just and fair migration governance where women citizens of Nepal can migrate with dignity. Description: Dissemination partner: WOREC (Women's Rehabilitation Centre) 2026-07-15T00:00:00Z https://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/33564 Title: Crude power: a genealogy of criminogenic state-corporate-industry symbiosis Authors: Twyman-Ghoshal, A Abstract: The function of government is broadly seen as an agent to control crime (Garland 1996). However, critical scholars have identified that the government’s crime control role is ambiguous, suggesting that the state and large corporations are interpenetrated (Kramer 2020; Tombs 2012; White 2018b). This paper examines the emergence of the United States Federal government and private oil industry relationship using a re-rendered two-stage genealogical inquiry method. The analysis shows the development of a complex yet largely symbiotic association of continuities, recurrences, and changes over the past century. The relationship makes clear that the largely unfettered dominance of power elites has functioned through the bulwark of the public and private sectors, continuing a colonial ontological praxis which devalues nature, human, and non-human life. The result of this particular state-corporate-industry symbiosis has been to normalize criminogenic dynamics, embed a petroleum fuelled global economy, and precipitate the climate crisis and related Earth system damage. Description: Data availability: No datasets were generated or analysed during the current study. 2026-06-18T00:00:00Z https://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/33554 Title: Young adults’ experiences of a specialist probation Hub: Procedural justice, trust and hope Authors: Ward, J; Phillips, J; Duke, K; Albertson, K; Cracknell, M; Fowler, A; Riley, L Abstract: There are growing calls for young adults (18- to 25-year-olds) in the criminal justice system to be treated as a distinct group and for service responses more attuned to this developmental life-course phase. This article draws on an evaluation of a specialist young adult probation ‘Hub’ analyzing results within a linked conceptual framework of procedural justice, building trust and instilling hope. A dominant finding was how the bespoke Hub and the probation practice that flowed from it led young adults to experience it as a service they wanted to engage with, that had tangible benefits and which led to a more substantive form of compliance. The article contributes valuable insights and knowledge on procedural justice in young adult probation. Description: Rights Retention Statement RRS: “For the purpose of open access, the author(s) has applied a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission.” 2026-06-24T00:00:00Z https://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/33459 Title: A journey through ‘infraspace’: The financial architecture of infrastructure Authors: Heslop, LA Abstract: This paper challenges dominant governance paradigms by exploring the world of infrastructure investment, referred to by the industry as the ‘infraspace’. Starting with financial institutions and multilateral development agencies that steer global infrastructure money, it will trace the financial, technical, bureaucratic and aspirational journey of infrastructure and infrastructure planning. Examining the sociofinancial architecture of infrastructure and development pulls into focus the relationship between states, state-owned enterprises and multilateral financial institutions. Rather than focus primarily on the social and cultural consequences of infrastructural change, however, or how the political promise and aspiration of infrastructure measures up to its everyday use, the point of departure for this paper is the social, economic and political relations that produce infrastructure. Such an examination requires a journey beyond the state and through infraspace. 2020-07-28T00:00:00Z