By signing a 10-point bilateral agreement with Nepal government on Friday, the visiting representatives of Bahrain agreed to the proposal of Nepal to repatriate the undocumented workers.
"Following the request of Nepali delegation to ensure safe repatriation of undocumented Nepali workers, the Bahrain delegation expressed its intention to grant amnesty to such workers by mid-2015," reads the agreement.As per the data, there are around 350 undocumented Nepali workers in Bahrain.
Chief Executive Officer of Labor Market Regulatory Authority (LMRA), Bahrain, Ausamah Abdulla Alabsi had held rounds of meeting with government officials to discuss about the labor market in Bahrain.
Talking to Republica, State Minister for Labor and Employment Tek Bahadur Gurung said that zero-cost recruitment of Nepali workers was one of the highlights of the bilateral talks.
"Zero-cost recruitment of Nepali workers is one of the achievements of our bilateral meeting with Bahrain. Now onward Nepalis will have to bear only the cost of their passport," minister Gurung said.
Currently, Nepali workers have been paying high recruitment fees to go to Bahrain, one of the lucrative job destinations among the gulf countries. According to sources, the Bahrain government is willing to hire as much as 1,50,000 Nepali workers for its labor market.
Similarly, the Bahrain government has expressed willingness to hire Nepalis to work as domestic workers. However, Nepal has asked for some time for internal homework as latter is preparing directives for domestic workers.
The government has placed a ban on sending domestic workers to destination countries for the last eight months.
Likewise, Nepali workers will be getting minimum salary as per the decision of the government of Nepal. As per the agreement, Nepalis will get Bahrain Dollar (BD) 550 for highly skilled/professional category, BD 150 for skilled, and BD 120 and 100 for semi-skilled and unskilled, respectively.
Nepal has opened 110 countries for foreign employment but has signed MoUs with only five countries--Japan, South Korea, Qatar, UAE and Bahrain.
Around 3.5 million Nepalis workers are working overseas, mainly in the Gulf countries while 1500 to 1700 Nepali leave the country for foreign employment every day. The record at DoFE shows that there are more than 38,000 Nepali workers in Bahrain.
Bilateral agreement highlights
· Bahrain to hire up to 1,50,000 Nepali migrant workers
· Information access to Nepali authorities to prevent fraud
· Bahrain to provide trainings to recruited workers
· Minimum salary (BD 550 for highly skilled/professional, BD 150 for skilled and BD 120 and 100 for semi-skilled and unskilled respectively
· Zero-cost recruitment
· 24 hours sponsored full health services
· Amnesty for undocumented workers
· Selected and reliable agencies to facilitate recruitment process
.Protection to workers as per existing international convention
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