DoFE not enforcing contractual rights, obligations

At a time when the government is mulling the revival of the Foreign Employment Act 2007, a report is out according to which the act doesn´t adequately regulate the labor recruitment industry. 

The report titled ´Migration Workers´ Access to Justice at Home: Nepal´ states that the act doesn´t effectively ensure accountability on the part of recruitment agencies and individual agents and that contractual rights and obligations are not enforced by the Department of Foreign Employment. “Nepali migrant workers experience a range of rights violations at the hands of private actors from the moment of recruitment through to their return home,” the report says. 

The report, prepared jointly by the Open Society Foundation, Center for the Study of Labor and Mobility and the University of New South Wales (UNSW) School of Law, was launched by Nepal´s former ambassador to Qatar Dr. Surya Nath Mishra at a function in the capital, Tuesday. Altogether 54 returnee labor migrants from Kathmandu, Dhanusa and Tanahun were interviewed for the report. 

Speaking at the function, Maria Teresa Rojas, director of the Open Society International Migration Initiative, said the government should focus on improving the current situation of Nepali migrant workers. “The government must develop more systematic and transparent procedures in order to better fulfill its mandate to oversee and hold accountable all stakeholders in the private recruitment industry,” she said. 

Rojas said there are many ways to improve the condition of migrant workers. “Migrant workers are extremely vulnerable before they depart for their destination countries and there are significant achievable efforts that the government can make to improve their situation,” she added. She also opined that the government should provide proper assistance to all migrants before their departure for labor destinations. 

Likewise, Bandita Sijapati, research director at the Center for the Study of Labor and Mobility, said that the major objective of the report is to make stakeholders aware about the status of Nepali migrant workers.  “Nepali migrant workers face difficulties in Nepal prior to departure and endure additional suffering when they reach their destination countries,” Sijapati said, adding, “We have tried to identify recommendations in a bid to draw the attention of stakeholders to improving the status of Nepali migrants.” 

The report also suggested that the Nepal government should ratify the UN Convention on Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Their Families, the ILO Domestic Workers Convention (189), and the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children.

Published  on: 11 June 2014 | Republica