Amendment to Foreign Employment Act: Call to focus on welfare of migrant workers

Kathmandu / May 31: Speakers at an interaction here today stressed the need to keep the welfare of migrant workers at the centre while amending the Foreign Employment Act.

They have also demanded replacing the words ‘protect the welfare of entrepreneurs’ with ‘protect the welfare of workers’ in the act.

The People’s Forum for Human Rights organised the interaction on relevant amendment to the Foreign Employment Act.

The speakers have also pointed out the need for arranging for migrant workers to receive health check-up at government hospitals before flying abroad and for the Foreign Employment Promotion Board to provide orientation training to them, apart from discouraging human trafficking under the pretext of offering job abroad.

They have also said that the power of authority may be misused if the Department of Foreign Employment is vested with the authority to investigate and file cases related to foreign employment frauds.

So this matter should be taken into mind while amending the act, they stressed.

At the event, a working paper was also presented making suggestions and addressing concerns for the welfare of migrant workers in the course of an amendment to the act.

In response, Under Secretary at the Ministry of Labour and Employment Arjun Khanal, also member secretary of the task force to amend the act, said that agreement was made on 90 percent of subjects under discussion and conversations were underway to work out 10 percent differences.

The event was also attended by Sita Ghimire of Safer Migration Project (SaMi) and Chairman of the National Network for Safe Migration Siddhi Chandra Baral. RSS