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March 1, 2023
KATHMANDU “Years of restrictive measures against women's labor mobility have left them vulnerable to human trafficking and forced labour, observers say.
The Nepal Police Anti-Trafficking Bureau is very busy at the moment.
He picks up nearly two dozen people, mostly women, and delivers them daily to his office from Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu, suspecting them of being potential victims of a human trafficking racket.
They are released after consultation. Some miss their flights.
Most of the individuals selected by the police have visitor visas for the Gulf countries.
“We bring them to the bureau for consultation,” said bureau spokesman Narahari Regmi. "They will be released immediately," he said. "Two-thirds are women."
The numbers were increasing.
“The trend did not stop even after the consultation. They seem to be desperate to go abroad at any cost,” Regmi said. “We have many cases where the same women were brought to counseling centers several times.”
Lack of opportunity at home has forced many young Nepalese to go abroad. Recently, the number of women has increased markedly.
Over the past three fiscal years, from 2019-2020 to 2021-2022, over the past three fiscal years, more than 1 million Nepalese have left the country in search of work in distant countries, despite the suffocating economy of the Covid-19 pandemic and leaving tens of thousands of people out of work, according to data. . to a recent government report.
With political instability escalating and economic prospects slowing, Nepal could face a record high number of migrant workers going abroad this fiscal year. The proportion of people traveling abroad on a visitor visa is also high, but they are not considered labor migrants.
In the first half of the current fiscal year, which began in mid-July last year, 418,191 new and renewed work permits were issued, according to government data.
The International Labor Organization estimated that about 41.5 percent of the world's 169 million international migrant workers in 2019 were women.
However, in Nepal, women receive less than 10 per cent of all work permits each year.
But observers say the actual number of Nepalese migrant women is much higher than official figures show.
They said that most women are forced to migrate through "illegal" channels due to restrictive government policies on labor mobility.
The migration of Nepalese women over the years has faced a series of bans affecting their right to move freely and seek employment.
They argue that while men and women are equally at risk of being trafficked, restrictive policies only apply to women.
These policies made women more vulnerable to human trafficking and forced labor.
“In our society, there is psychological pressure on men to work abroad. However, women are viewed through the lens of self-sacrifice,” says Mina Poodle, a migration researcher.
This approach has long been criticized for creating problems for working women.
In September 2020, a parliamentary committee passed a landmark decision directing the government to allow women to work as domestic workers in the Gulf States after more than a three-year ban.
The government restricted their movement abroad, citing widespread violence and exploitation.
The Committee, however, established some conditions allowing their labor migration.
Observers say that these conditions are not feasible.
Some of the conditions include ensuring the basic rights of workers such as wages, weekly and annual leave, social security, safety and health at work.
Women who wish to work must complete domestic service training, a basic understanding of the local language and culture, rituals, and mandatory training in the host country before employment.
The government tightened the rules for entering the country after complaints from many countries.
Last March, the Department of Immigration issued a 17-point ruling dealing with issues related to visitor visas.
Among the provisions: only those who have visited the Persian Gulf twice in the past can go there on a visitor visa.
Many women have been banned from visiting the Persian Gulf on the grounds that they do not qualify to visit under visa regulations.
Most of the persons rescued by the anti-trafficking bureau from abroad from the 2018/19 financial year to mid-February of this year were women.
“Of the 464 people rescued, 254 are women, including 26 under the age of 18,” the bureau said in a statement. "Of the 72 people rescued in the current fiscal year, 47 were women, including four under the age of 18."
According to S.P. Regmi, most of the victims were those who went abroad to work through illegal channels.
“While we restrict them at Tribhuvan International Airport, there has been an increase in the number of women traveling to the Persian Gulf on routes from India, Sri Lanka and Myanmar,” Regmi said.
“We get rescue requests every day,” Regmi said. "Currently, the bureau is rescuing 24 people - 13 women from Kuwait, Oman, India, Syria and Dubai and 11 men from Myanmar."
According to Manju Gurung, co-founder and strategic advisor to Pourakhi Nepal, an organization dedicated to advocating for the rights and well-being of women migrant workers, women who seek work abroad tend to be marginalized.
“The minimum monthly wage of Rs 15,000 is not enough for such women to be able to lead their families,” Gurung said. “They can earn at least twice as much as domestic workers abroad.”
According to Prity Shrest, UN Women Program Officer, the stigma associated with women socializing outside the home, especially in the case of single women, has greatly affected women's right to workforce mobility.
“The same attitude of society towards the right of women to move and work is reflected in the policy of the state,” Shrestha said.
“Since the women are not allowed to use the door, they have no choice but to escape through the window,” Poodle said. “The first thing we need to effectively address issues related to the employment of foreigners is a comprehensive migration policy.”
Migration researchers say there is a need to actively raise issues related to the exploitation of working women in national and international platforms and in bilateral meetings.
Kabiraj Upreti, deputy spokesman for the Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Security, said the ministry had submitted to the Nepalese Ministry of Foreign Affairs a draft of the current regulation on labor migration of domestic workers to the Gulf countries.
“We have not yet received a response from the ministry,” Upreti added.
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