Govt should do more to secure Israeli jobs

It has been more than seven months since Israel announced the suspension of granting fresh working visas to Nepalis seeking jobs in Israel. Following the announcement, not only the hopes of hundreds of Nepalis aspiring to get lucrative jobs in Israel have been shattered but also millions of rupees they paid to manpower agents for securing jobs in Israel remain in limbo. The large sums of money invested by manpower agents for the process of recruiting overseas workers have also been rendered fruitless. Moreover visas issued to the agencies, by the Israeli embassy itself, have also been canceled.

Israel’s move to restrict Nepali workers has surely cast a dark cloud over the future prospects of thousands of Nepalis planning to work there. This is a major setback in Nepal’s foreign employment sector. More importantly, Israel, which is the most lucrative and safe destination for Nepali women working overseas too has now suddenly become distant.

Recently, Israel has come up with talks of a third party involvement while sending Nepali workers to Israel, apparently indicating the participation of International Organization for Migration (IOM) in the process.

However, Israel has always cited genuine reasons to impose the restriction: Rampant practice of overcharging foreign job aspirants by Nepali manpower agencies, rising instances of Nepali workers in Israel turning into brokers, blatant misuse of flying visas to work in Israel and lack of job-related skills. Israel is also aware that the bad reputation of Nepali manpower agencies is not only limited to sending workers to Israel but to other countries as well. The continuous rise in the number of complaints registered against agencies and individual agents at the Department of Foreign Employment (DFE) by Nepali foreign jobseekers is evidence of the unrestrained fraudulent practices in Nepal’s foreign employment sector. For instance, though the Nepali government has fixed Rs 240,000 as a charge to be collected from foreign jobseekers, manpower agencies collect two or three times more stating that they have to pay exorbitant commissions to manpower agents based in Israel.

This is not the first time that Israel has shown concerns about the unethical practices. In the past too, Israel had drawn attention of Nepali authorities toward the rising cases of cheating as well as the low skill level of Nepali workers—the major factors that put workers at great difficulty. But, Nepali officials have never bothered to heed the genuine concerns raised by the government of a country that is a lucrative job destination for Nepalis. Ultimately, Israel resorted to closing its door and denying working visas to Nepali jobseekers, which indicates the severity of the problem. There also is fear and uncertainty in the air for Nepali women who seek to work as special caretaker in Israel. Despite series of attempts made by Nepali officials to get the ‘embargo’ lifted, Israel remains yet to be convinced.

In the latest series of efforts demonstrated by Nepali officials, a high level delegation led by Labor Minister Mohamad Aftab Alam, visited Israel to lobby for reopening Israeli job market but without any concrete plans to curb the prevalent malpractices in the recruiting process. This high profile visit utterly failed to convince Israel that recruiting processes would improve in the coming days. Instead, Israel’s Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Eliyahu Yishai took the opportunity to repeat their concerns to the Alam-led Nepali team: Rising incidents of fraudulent practices by Nepali manpower agencies and workers such as overcharging, misusing flying visas and sending workers without guarantee of getting jobs, Nepali workers engaging in illegal brokering activities in Israel and their low skill levels.

Alam’s visit to Israel didn’t yield any fruitful result. Few days after his visit, Israel forwarded a name list of 16 manpower agencies charging them of fraudulent activities and demanded that Nepal government take action against them—one of the major conditions to lift suspension of working visas. But unfortunately, though more than two months have passed since minister Alam’s visit to Israel, nothing has been done by the Nepali side to address Israel’s concern. The ‘tainted’ manpower agencies are still conducting business as usual which shows the lack of will and seriousness of Nepali officials.

Recently, Israel has come up with talks of a third party involvement while sending Nepali workers to Israel, apparently indicating the participation of International Organization for Migration (IOM) in the process. This shows that Israel is in no mood to reopen its door for Nepalis without involvement of an independent third party, unlike in the past where merely manpower agencies were involved in sending workers to Israel.

So, merely visiting Israel and meeting its officials from time to time and making hollow promises to implement fair practices in manpower sectors is not sufficient. Nepali officials need to walk the talk. They should take genuine initiatives to wipe out cheating, swindling and overcharging that manpower agencies engage in while sending Nepali workers to all foreign destinations and not Israel only. As long as Nepali officials display reluctance to enforce stringent mechanism and take decisive actions Israel will not be convinced about the government’s commitment. To secure more overseas jobs in future, Nepali authorities have to enforce a strong legal system to discourage the ills plaguing the foreign employment sector and take effective steps to increase the skills of foreign bound Nepali workers.

prabhakar@myrepublica.com