The 40-year-old had reached Malaysia a few weeks ago to work at a Selangor-based plastic factory by paying Rs 70,000 to a Nepali manpower agency.[break]
As in the case of every Nepali worker willing to go overseas through legal channels, half of the amount paid by Dhanik Lal to the Nepali agency was given to a Malaysian agency, which included an insurance fee as well. However, Dhanik Lal´s wife Sita Devi -- who is now in dire straits since she must bring up all of her four children, including one mentally retarded, on her own -- did not receive money from the Malaysian insurance company.
“Our man did not die on duty,” said Pramod Kumar Mahara, Dhanik Lal´s brother-in-law, who recently accompanied Sita Devi to Kathmandu for claiming compensation from Foreign Employment Promotion Board (FEPB). “He died while asleep. He should have died while working in the factory for his family to claim insurance money.”
Pramod´s sarcastic words reflect a grim reality. A majority of Nepali workers who die in Malaysia are not entitled to insurance money from any of Malaysian insurance companies in spite of having paid insurance fees through manpower agencies before leaving the country. This is mainly because the policy under which all Nepali workers are insured in Malaysia covers only on-duty -- not all types of -- deaths.
“If a Nepali worker dies while working or on the way to and from the company, his family receives 25,000 Malaysian ringgits from the insurance company, 5,000 ringgits of which is for bringing the dead body to Nepal,” says Kumud Khanal, general secretary of Nepal Association for Foreign Employment Agencies (NAFEA), adding, “However, if one dies while asleep, his family gets nothing.”
Ironically, most of Nepali workers die while asleep because the temperature of their congested rooms. “One in every three deaths has occurred while the workers were asleep. Besides, many workers die in accidents while crossing the roads since they are not familiar with traffic rules in Malaysia,” says Khanal. “However, their families do not get the insurance money due to the flawed policy.”
According to government statistics, at least two dead bodies of Nepali workers are brought home every day.
Khanal urged the government to take up the issue of flawed insurance policy while signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Malaysia. “If this issue is addressed in the MoU; and Malaysia makes it mandatory for all agencies that hire workers from Nepal to introduce 24 hours --instead of only on-duty-- insurance policy, families of those who die outside their factories will also get insurance,” said Khanal.
Purna Chandra Bhattarai, Director General (DG) of Department of Foreign Employment (DoFE), said, “This is indeed a serious issue. However, we need not include this in the MoU. We can raise this issue in letters of exchange or talks with the Malaysian authorities.”
Ganesh Gurung, coordinator of a high level task force on foreign employment management and improvement, says, “Not only those who die off duty, even families of those who die on duty give up their claim for insurance money because it takes a long time.”
“The only on-duty insurance policy for Nepali workers is flawed. The insurance policy should cover Nepali workers right from the day they leave the country and the day they get back to home. The only thing Nepali workers need to do is pay a little more as insurance fees. The Nepal government can also make arrangements for bulk insurance deals for all workers.”
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