Nepal: NHRC policy to guard workers in foreign jobs
The National Human Right Commission is developing a policy paper on safe migration for Nepali women taking up work in other countries.
Photo by The Emancipation Network, Flickr Creative Commons
Recognising it as a serious human rights issue, Nepal's National Human Right Commission is developing a policy paper on safe migration.
“The commission is developing a policy paper to protect women migration rights and safeguard them from human trafficking,” said Padma Mathema, National Rapporteur on Trafficking.
“We are consulting stakeholders on safe migration and possible anti-trafficking moves,” she said, adding that the commission is entering the women migration sector after reports of increased trafficking in women and girls under the garb of foreign employment.
Thousands of women in foreign jobs are undocumented. Hundreds have suffered and are still suffering from exploitation and abuses. And many of them are committing suicide every year in host countries.
According to data provided by NHRC, three women died following exploitation and abuse in 2008-09, and 20 in the last year. Only 29,000 women migrant workers are recorded with the Department of Foreign Employment while independent estimates put it at 140,000.
According to Non-Resident Nepalese Association, 140,500 Nepali women were in overseas jobs in 2009.
Most of the women migrant workers are illiterate, unskilled and unaware of safe migration, said executive director of Foreign Employment Promotion Board Sthaneshwor Devkota.
Paurakhi, a non-governmental organisation working for safe migration, suggests to adopt preventive and curative measures simultaneously to control trafficking.
There are many factors associated with women migration that lead them to become victims of trafficking. So, counter measures also have to be multi-dimensional, said Manju Gurung, president of Paurakhi.
Date: 6 May 2011
Source: The Himalayan
