House panel directs to rescue Nepalis’ at state expenses

Kathmandu, Sept. 29

Industry, Commerce, Labour and Consumer Welfare Committee of the Federal Parliament has directed the government to rescue every Nepali stranded abroad at the government expense.

Rescue each Nepali national that went abroad with labour permission and are stranded due to any reason at the government expense, asked the committee to the government.

It has also directed to amend the directives to rescue stranded Nepalis due to coronavirus crisis issued by the COVID-19 Crisis Management Centre (CCMC) and bring back all citizens from foreign countries and concerned ministries to forge collaboration for the same.

To expedite the rescue operation the house panel directed the Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Security (MoLESS) to collaborate with the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation (MoCTCA) to add up the number of flights to and fro the key labour destinations.

Likewise, it asked to restrict the migration of Nepalis abroad for domestic workers until the country signs bilateral agreement for the same with any other friendly country unless the latter has exclusive law regarding such employment.

Earlier, on September 13, the same panel has directed the government including the MoLESS, MoCTCA and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) to rescue all Nepalis stranded abroad within a month and initiated the work immediately.

According to the CCMC statistics, about 83,025 Nepalis were rescued from 32 countries by Tuesday. Maximum 24,248 Nepali nationals were brought back from the United Arab Emirates. Likewise, 12,956 were rescued from Saudi Arabia, 11,958 from Malaysia, 11,917 from Qatar, 8,478 from Kuwait and 1,744 from Japan.

As per the estimates of the Tourism Ministry and Non-Resident Nepali Associaton the rescued Nepalis are only the half of the total that wanted to come back to their home countries. The Tourism Ministry pusts the total number of Nepalis that need rescue at about 150,000.

About 1,000 Nepalis on an average are coming to the country every day. It means the house panel’s earlier direction would not be fulfilled if the trend contined for another two weeks as it would take more than two months to get them back in this way.

Meanwhile, the parliamentary committee has also directed the government if a Nepali migrant domestic worker had undergone any physical, psychological or sexual violence, rescue only after making him/her contact with the family and embassy of the respective country.

“Issue permission to those migrant domestic workers who had obtained the labour permission before 2015 and have come to Nepal in vacation,” it said.

The committee has also directed the concerned ministries to cancel the registration of manpower agencies involved in human trafficking and punish them accordingly. Take stern action against the officials at the immigration at the Tribhuvan International Airport and other agencies that helped in human trafficking, it directed the MoFA and Ministry of Home Affairs.

Published in The Rising Nepal daily on 30 September 2020.