Domestic workers abroad need protection - activists

Nepalese women working as domestic helpers in the Gulf region are concerned that the government of Nepal is failing to protect them, female labour rights activists said in the capital Kathmandu on Wednesday.

It is still illegal in Nepal for women to work as domestic helpers in foreign countries – as this work is normally in the informal sector. In 1998, the government banned women from seeking foreign employment after worker Kani Sherpa was allegedly killed by her employer in Saudi Arabia in the same year, according to Paurakhi, an organisation formed by a group of returnee Nepalese migrant workers.

According to the group, the government finally gave permission in 2003 for women to work only in the formal sector, including department stores, supermarkets, factories and specific industries.

“But the only jobs available for the poor Nepalese women — who are mostly from villages and with little education — are in the unorganised [informal] sector such as domestic service,” Manju Gurung, President of Paurakhi, said. “How can they find jobs elsewhere when they are not skilled and lack professional education?” she asked.

Hundreds of women travel to the Gulf daily seeking employment in the domestic sector, but due to the lack of a bilateral agreement between Nepal and any of the Gulf countries, many of these women are underpaid, sexually exploited and often detained by authorities due to lack of legal documentation, Gurung claimed.

The Nepalese embassy in Dubai estimates that around 40,000 women are working in the Gulf region, mostly in the domestic sector.

In addition to possible abuse and exploitation, the women have to travel via Indian airports as they would be stopped if they flew out of Nepal, said the activists.

“In the process of travelling through India, they get into vulnerable situations and even get trafficked into Indian brothels,” activist Bijaya Raj Shrestha said.

Each year, Nepal’s migrant workers send over US $1 billion in remittances to the country, according to the country’s state-owned largest financial institution, Nepal Rastriya Bank. Nepalese women, most of whom work as domestic maids in the Gulf region, contribute about 10 percent of this figure, according to the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM).

Many of women come from impoverished rural communities where employment opportunities are nonexistent

“Despite their huge contribution, the government is doing nothing to protect them or introduce laws in favour of these poor migrant female workers,” Sharu Joshi, UNIFEM’s regional programme manager for migration, noted.

Meanwhile, UNIFEM Nepal is actively working to convince the government to lift the ban on domestic service in foreign countries for Nepalese migrant workers. Additionally, the agency is also having a series of international discussions this week to include the issue of women’s foreign employment in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).

“These female workers need a safe mechanism in countries where they work and this can be possible only through bilateral agreements,” said Joshi, who explained that international legal instruments such as CEDAW can be effective in making the local government accountable for the welfare of the female workers.

The Nepalese government will also be responsible for establishing special agencies, a tribunal and a board to address a number of issues such as economic exploitation, free skills development training, orientation programmes, access to employment information and their rights to get loans.

According to UNIFEM, women workers still don’t have access to bank loans in the Himalayan kingdom due to discriminatory laws. “Women have no choice but to get loans at very high interest rates ranging between 24 to 100 percent,” explained Joshi.

NN/JL/DS