The Ministry of Labor and Transport Management (MoLTM), which drafted the TOR, has made it clear that Nepali women can not migrate to those Gulf nations which do not have Nepali embassy. [break]
“Nepali women can legally work only in those countries which have Nepali embassies,” said Spokesperson for the MoLTM Purna Chandra Bhattarai. “We can not allow Nepali women to work in those countries which do not have our government agency.”
As of now, only four gulf countries -- Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Qatar-- have Nepali embassies or labor attachés. However, Nepali women have also been found to be working in Oman and Bahrain. They are believed to have reached there through illegal channels via Indian cities.
On November 20, the government had approved the TOR drafted by the MoLTM as per the recommendations forwarded by a high-level taskforce formed to introduce new legal provisions for safe migration of Nepali women workers. However, even after the introduction of new provisions, Nepali women´s legal entry into any country in the Gulf remains uncertain.
“Our embassies and labor attachés in four gulf countries also oversee other nearby countries,” Bhattarai said. “However, it is simply impossible. These four embassies and labor attachés can not take care of Nepali workers throughout the Gulf region.”
Regional Program Coordinator of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) Saru Joshi says the government´s decision to allow Nepali women to legally work in only four gulf countries is an incomplete step. “It is not an adequate measure to ensure safe migration of all Nepali women to the Gulf countries,” she said. “The government should also open embassies in other Gulf countries to make sure that Nepali women need not resort to illegal ways.”
The government had announced a ban on Nepali women´s entry into the Gulf region after a Nepali woman unable to endure excessive torture meted out by her Kuwaiti employer committed suicide in 1998. In 2003, following massive campaigns against the ban, the government had relaxed it for organized sectors.
However, the restrictions continued to exist in unorganized sectors until Foreign Employment Act, which ended the discrimination against women in overseas jobs, came into effect in 2007. But, following a series of cases of Nepali women being subjected to sexual exploitation and physical torture, a virtual ban was put in place.
Despite several restrictions, more than 100,000 Nepali women are illegally working in Gulf countries, official reports state.
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