http://www.ekantipur.com/2011/03/21/oped/travelling-blind/331229.html
Published in 'The Kathmandu Post'
21st March 2011
In recent years, the trend of Nepalis leaving the country for foreign employment has significantly increased. After Nepal plunged into civil war in 1996, the number of migrant workers going overseas increased tremendously. According to the Ministry of Labour and Transport Management, approximately 650 migrant workers from Nepal leave for various labour-receiving countries everyday, with an estimated 2.27 million Nepali migrant workers already engaged in foreign employment services—a majority of which fall into the category of unskilled labourers.
However, the number of Nepali migrant workers overseas could be even higher than estimated due to the many migrant workers using informal or clandestine ways, mostly via India and Bangladesh, to reach labour destinations. With the growing number of labour migrants in foreign lands and remittance income climbing to 21 percent of the nation’s GDP, Nepal’s economy is slowly shifting towards a remittance-based from the traditionally agriculture-based economy. As the earnings of foreign workers continue to bolster the nation’s economy, problems facing labour migrants continue to rise. Fraud, deception, exploitation, sexual harassment, abuse, recruitment malpractice, physical and mental torture, confiscation of IDs, passports and important documents by employers, restriction of mobility, poor living and working conditions, longer working hours than agreed to, termination of contracts, non-provision of salaries and a lack of medical treatment are all problems of which a majority of labour migrants have faced at least one, if not more. However, the government’s response to the plight of migrant workers and the grave situations they encounter are discouraging and depressing rather than promising. So far, Nepal is ill-prepared for unwanted labour problems.
The recent news report of thousands of Nepalis stuck in Saudi Arabia in critical conditions—without the resources or assistance needed to return home—reveals the bitter truth Nepali migrant workers risk facing when they seek foreign employment. It also shows how weak the government has been in safeguarding the rights of labour migrants abroad. It was estimated that Saudi Arabia alone has more than half a million unskilled labourers, among which some 100,000 are there illegally. Moreover, it is sad to know that
around 200 Nepali labourers die each month, and ferrying those bodies back to Nepal for proper funeral rites takes more than a year without any kind of compensation. While our Nepali migrant workers continue to suffer, the government is busy appointing labour attaches—something that has fallen short of the efforts needed to protect migrants’ rights.
Though the Foreign Employment Rules (2008) clearly define the need for the provision of orientation training for any worker seeking foreign employment, the orientation session seems to have been limited to the distribution of certificates. Potential migrant workers are entitled to know about the culture, lifestyle, economic, social and political situation, language, labour and immigration laws, as well as the traffic rules in the country they are going to. However, there isn’t an effective mechanism to deliver this knowledge to the nation’s labour migrants. A recent report from UNIFEM-Nepal and the People’s Forum revealed that 77 percent of Nepali women migrant workers did not have proper knowledge about their future work provisions, and 72 percent were not aware of their right to insurance. Hence, there should be comprehensive pre-departure orientations and
labour-related information should be provided in both rural and urban centres so that potential migrants can make informed decisions.
Nepal’s migration process is not wholly documented because of malpractice by recruiting firms as well as the informal methods some workers use to reach labour destinations. It is reported that there are 45,000 Nepali migrant workers in Kuwait—one third of which entered the country using fake passports. Similarly, there were 10,000 Nepali women migrants in Israel in 2008; among them, only 4,410 entered with the permission of the government of Nepal. These examples clearly illustrate the poor regulatory mechanisms of the nation’s government in terms of monitoring outgoing migrants.
Though the National Labour Policy (1999) provides for the mobilisation of diplomatic missions in labour-receiving countries to protect the rights of migrant workers, due to a lack of resources, the functions of such missions are limited to issuing passports. They need more human resources in order to be more efficient. The missions are not capable of handling the overwhelming number of problems that migrant workers face. There is not a proper support system in place to protect labour rights, including legal support for workers abroad. The High Level Advisor Committee with the participation of MoLTM, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, National Planning Commission and foreign employment agencies should coordinate with each other to make migration safer and to prepare for unwanted migration-related problems in the future.
One way to protect the labour rights is through developing bilateral labour agreements with labour-receiving countries. But so far, Nepal has only signed labour agreements with four countries: Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and South Korea. Moreover, the government needs to ratify some international instruments, like UN Convention on the Protection of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, which guarantee the rights of migrant workers. The government needs to quickly develop mechanisms to implement coherent labour policies for the safety of Nepal’s labour migrants.
Published in 'The Kathmandu Post'
21st March 2011
Travelling Blind
In recent years, the trend of Nepalis leaving the country for foreign employment has significantly increased. After Nepal plunged into civil war in 1996, the number of migrant workers going overseas increased tremendously. According to the Ministry of Labour and Transport Management, approximately 650 migrant workers from Nepal leave for various labour-receiving countries everyday, with an estimated 2.27 million Nepali migrant workers already engaged in foreign employment services—a majority of which fall into the category of unskilled labourers.
However, the number of Nepali migrant workers overseas could be even higher than estimated due to the many migrant workers using informal or clandestine ways, mostly via India and Bangladesh, to reach labour destinations. With the growing number of labour migrants in foreign lands and remittance income climbing to 21 percent of the nation’s GDP, Nepal’s economy is slowly shifting towards a remittance-based from the traditionally agriculture-based economy. As the earnings of foreign workers continue to bolster the nation’s economy, problems facing labour migrants continue to rise. Fraud, deception, exploitation, sexual harassment, abuse, recruitment malpractice, physical and mental torture, confiscation of IDs, passports and important documents by employers, restriction of mobility, poor living and working conditions, longer working hours than agreed to, termination of contracts, non-provision of salaries and a lack of medical treatment are all problems of which a majority of labour migrants have faced at least one, if not more. However, the government’s response to the plight of migrant workers and the grave situations they encounter are discouraging and depressing rather than promising. So far, Nepal is ill-prepared for unwanted labour problems.
The recent news report of thousands of Nepalis stuck in Saudi Arabia in critical conditions—without the resources or assistance needed to return home—reveals the bitter truth Nepali migrant workers risk facing when they seek foreign employment. It also shows how weak the government has been in safeguarding the rights of labour migrants abroad. It was estimated that Saudi Arabia alone has more than half a million unskilled labourers, among which some 100,000 are there illegally. Moreover, it is sad to know that
around 200 Nepali labourers die each month, and ferrying those bodies back to Nepal for proper funeral rites takes more than a year without any kind of compensation. While our Nepali migrant workers continue to suffer, the government is busy appointing labour attaches—something that has fallen short of the efforts needed to protect migrants’ rights.
Though the Foreign Employment Rules (2008) clearly define the need for the provision of orientation training for any worker seeking foreign employment, the orientation session seems to have been limited to the distribution of certificates. Potential migrant workers are entitled to know about the culture, lifestyle, economic, social and political situation, language, labour and immigration laws, as well as the traffic rules in the country they are going to. However, there isn’t an effective mechanism to deliver this knowledge to the nation’s labour migrants. A recent report from UNIFEM-Nepal and the People’s Forum revealed that 77 percent of Nepali women migrant workers did not have proper knowledge about their future work provisions, and 72 percent were not aware of their right to insurance. Hence, there should be comprehensive pre-departure orientations and
labour-related information should be provided in both rural and urban centres so that potential migrants can make informed decisions.
Nepal’s migration process is not wholly documented because of malpractice by recruiting firms as well as the informal methods some workers use to reach labour destinations. It is reported that there are 45,000 Nepali migrant workers in Kuwait—one third of which entered the country using fake passports. Similarly, there were 10,000 Nepali women migrants in Israel in 2008; among them, only 4,410 entered with the permission of the government of Nepal. These examples clearly illustrate the poor regulatory mechanisms of the nation’s government in terms of monitoring outgoing migrants.
Though the National Labour Policy (1999) provides for the mobilisation of diplomatic missions in labour-receiving countries to protect the rights of migrant workers, due to a lack of resources, the functions of such missions are limited to issuing passports. They need more human resources in order to be more efficient. The missions are not capable of handling the overwhelming number of problems that migrant workers face. There is not a proper support system in place to protect labour rights, including legal support for workers abroad. The High Level Advisor Committee with the participation of MoLTM, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, National Planning Commission and foreign employment agencies should coordinate with each other to make migration safer and to prepare for unwanted migration-related problems in the future.
One way to protect the labour rights is through developing bilateral labour agreements with labour-receiving countries. But so far, Nepal has only signed labour agreements with four countries: Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and South Korea. Moreover, the government needs to ratify some international instruments, like UN Convention on the Protection of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, which guarantee the rights of migrant workers. The government needs to quickly develop mechanisms to implement coherent labour policies for the safety of Nepal’s labour migrants.
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