Though Nepal is not yet a signatory to the United Nations (UN) convention related to migrant workers passed in 1990, it has been celebrating this day since 2006 to express its solidarity with the world's governing body in ensuring various sorts of welfare to migrant workers all over the world.
The General Assembly of the UN on December 4, 2004 proclaimed December 18 as the International Migrants Day.
On the occasion of 16th International Migrants Day, the Ministry of Labor and Employment (MoLE) together with various stakeholder agencies organized a rally in Kathmandu with a slogan 'Safe Foreign Employment, Our Common Concern.'
The rally also demanded respect for foreign employment, an end to several types of violence against international migrant workers and an end to duping migrant workers by unscrupulous recruiting agencies among all sorts of acts of victimization.
Addressing the event, Secretary of the MoLE Ram Kumar Acharya said that it would be more meaningful to observe the day in participation of the returnee migrant workers, aspirant migrant workers and recruiting agencies.
Arguing that the Nepali migrant workers were fleeced by fellow countrymen from their recruiting agencies and training centers right from their recruitment, Secretary Acharya urged concerned stakeholders to spearhead a campaign that would call an end to all sorts of duping against the Nepali migrant workers.
He pledged that the Ministry was going to forward various programs and plans benefitting the aspiring Nepali migrant workers such as implementing free visa and ticket for them to major labor destinations, creating job opportunities in the home country and accrediting the foreign employment returnees with certificate on the basis of their skills and the like.
According to him, the Ministry was also gearing up to hold discussion with the Election Commission on how to facilitate Nepali migrant workers abroad in casting their votes in the election back home.
The Foreign Employment Promotion Board's statistics show that except for India, there are currently more than 3.9 million Nepali workers being employed overseas, mainly in the Gulf countries.
Similarly, more than a million foreign migrant workers, including Indians, Bangladeshis, are estimated to be working in Nepal.
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