Durga Kumal has lost her hope in life becase her relentless efforts to bring her husband´s body from Saudi Arabia have been fruitless so far.

She heard the news of her husband´s death six months ago but hasn´t received the body yet as she does not know the complicated process to bring the body home. "I went to all possible places to receive the body. It´s already been six months since his death but don´t know when will I get to see his body," she said. She said that she doesn´t have any option other than to wait. 

Durga´s husband, a retired army serviceman, went to Saudi Arabia four years ago to work for a security company and never came back. She learnt about the death through his friend, who also worked in Saudi Arabia. Durga´s case is just the tip of the iceberg. There are many such cases where families struggle to fetch the dead bodies from various destination countries. 

According to Foreign Employment Promotion Board (FEPB), altogether 38 dead bodies remain unattended overseas because of various reasons. In Saudi Arabia alone, there are 29 bodies of Nepali workers waiting repatriation. Likewise, six and three dead bodies each are in Malaysia and Qatar respectively. In case of Saudi Arabia, the employers need to provide exit permit for repatriation of the bodies and the process can take months. 

"We can´t bear the cost for bringing the bodies of illegal migrant workers from destination countries," said Tika Bhandari, director of the FEPB. He said that there are several difficulties in bringing the dead bodies from Saudi Arabia. First Saudi authorities need to clear the deceased of criminal charges and second the hospital fees have to be cleared. "Also, most of the dead bodies have remained unattended as the kin in Nepal have are not in our contact," he informed. However, the government is mulling over setting up a ´relief fund´ for bringing home unattended bodies of Nepali workers abroad.

Earlier, parliament´s International Relations and Labor Committee had directed all the stakeholders to initiate the process to bring such bodies as soon as possible. The committee had also instructed the authorities concerned to furnish the number and status of unattended bodies. Authorities claim that the death rate of migrant workers overseas is directly related to the medical-check up conducted prior to leaving the country. Also, lack of proper orientation is considered as one of the important causes of deaths of migrant workers. 

"In a bid to reduce deaths abroad, we are trying our best to improve the standard of orientation for Nepali workers before they fly abroad," said Bhandari. The death rate of migrant workers has been on the rise. A total of 828 migrant workers died in 2013 in 15 different countries, mostly in the Gulf region and Malaysia.

Published on: 3 November 2014 | Republica