Abu Dhabi: Nepal temporarily stopped sending housemaids abroad since April 17, 2014, a senior Nepalese official told Gulf News.
The temporary ban will be in place until a committee constituted by the Nepalese Government completes its review of issues of female domestic workers abroad and frames its recommendations, said Netra Bahadur Tandan, the Deputy Chief of Mission at the Nepalese Embassy in Abu Dhabi.
Based on the recommendations of the committee, the government will formulate new regulations to ensure the safety and welfare of Nepalese female domestic workers going abroad.
“That will be good for both Nepal and the host countries,” Tandan said.
However, the temporary ban has not affected the Nepalese housemaids currently working in the UAE, he said.
When going back on a vacation to Nepal, and wishing to return to their job in the UAE, the housemaids in employment currently have to visit the embassy in the UAE and obtain a letter to be submitted at the Department of Foreign Employment in Kathmandu in order to get a Foreign Employment Permit. Otherwise, they cannot leave Nepal, the diplomat said.
The number of Nepalese housemaids working in the UAE was not readily available with him.
Despite the ban, there are reports that Nepalese women have been going abroad, including to the UAE, as domestic workers. Nepalese Government has been trying to curb this illegal trafficking, Tandon said. “We have an open border with India; that’s why it is difficult to stop people’s movement.”
Nepal has been imposing the ban on sending female domestic workers abroad intermittently in recent years.
Nepal lifted its more than a decade-long ban on female domestic workers’ employment in the Middle East in June 2011 and the new stringent regulations for recruitment were announced in November 2011. The Department of Foreign Employment in Kathmandu had to give a Foreign Employment Permit to a prospective domestic worker to go abroad for employment, based on the attestation of relevant documents by the Nepalese Embassy in the host country.
