Reference wages and drafting standard labor contracts for all migrant workers are among the major issued raised by the ministry. 

The Ministry of Labor and Employment (MoLE) has urged the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) to include the agendas of migration in the upcoming summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Corporation (SAARC) to be held in Kathmandu in November. 

The MoLE has asked the government to include the issues of foreign employment in the SARRC summit with an aim of bringing out common labor law for the region for the first time. “We have already prepared our agendas which we want to be discussed in the upcoming SAARC summit,” said State Minister of MoLE Tek Bahadur Gurung. He informed that the ministry will formally send the agenda to the MoFA on Monday. 

Minister Gurung opined that it is extremely important and relevant to discuss various issues of migration and foreign employment in a bid to bring out a common labor law that can govern all the SAARC countries. 

“Agreement on equal pay for equal work between sending and receiving countries on the basis of qualification, rather than nationality, to address competition over minimum wages between sending countries, and to end to discrimination of workers based on national origin in destination countries” are the major points of the draft of the collective agenda prepared by the Foreign Employment Promotion Board (FEPB).

Similarly, the issue of collaborating on stranded migrants for easy repatriation in situation of conflict or emergency is also an issue that MoLE wants to be raised by the government in the summit. Likewise, optimizing benefits of organized labor migration and forming high level committee (secretariat) to work on safe migration are other prioritized areas that MoLE wants Nepal to raise in the summit.

In the meantime, the government has said that the summit should address the issue of labor trafficking in the SAARC Convention on Preventing and Combating Trafficking in Women and Children for Prostitution. This agenda comes at a time when various Nepalis migrants are becoming the victim of trafficking in course of foreign employment and are facing problems to seek justice. 

The FEPB has said that it is necessary to strengthen SAARC members´ collective bargaining position vis-à-vis destination countries by addressing the collective South Asian perspective. Director of the FEPB Tika Bhandari told Republica that Nepali migrants can benefit a lot if the agendas of migration will be discussed in the upcoming SAARC summit and common labor law is drafted for the region. He opined that due to lack of such a law, Nepali migrants are victimized overseas in many ways.

Data provided by the Department of Foreign Employment show that more than 3.3 million Nepalis are working overseas, mostly in the Gulf countries. According to data, around 1,500 to 2,000 Nepalis leave for foreign employment every day.

Published on: 1 September 2014 | Republica