The government has tightened the process to grant work permission to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) after its latest study showed middlemen of using the UAE as a transit to smuggle Nepali youths to dangerous workplaces in the Gulf countries that have been banned by the government.

Officials said the new measure was taken as they found significant number of job seekers had gone to Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Egypt and other countries through the UAE. "We have tightened the screw on granting permission for those who are applying for the UAE jobs as large number of Nepali workers were found to have ended up in places that have been violent and their chances of reaching war-ravaged Syria via the UAE is very high,” Purna Chandra Bhattarai, director general of the Department of Foreign Employment (DoFE) told Republica.

Bhattarai also stated that possibility of Nepali workers to be used by warring Syrian rebels to fight against the regime is getting high given the easy transit route from the UAE. With the imposition of stricter rule in granting permission, the number of job seekers leaving for the UAE dropped to 4,687 during the month between mid-October and mid-November from 4,846 recorded earlier month. “To encourage workers to work in the UAE, we have recently increase the minimum salary for our workers, but the number of workers sneaking to other restive countries with the attraction of more lucrative salary is still increasing,” said Bhattarai.

In an effort to control the unauthorized departure for the UAE, a meeting chaired by Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Narayan Kaji Shrestha had decided to request the UAE government to grant access to information of its foreign ministry to the Department of Immigration and DoFE to verify the genuineness of the visas submitted by the manpower agencies. “If we are allowed access to the UAE´s online visa detail, we can reduce the number of illegal entry of Nepalis via the UAE to other countries,” said Bhattarai. 

The UAE, which is hub of the Gulf countries, provides visa easily to the job seekers to neighboring countries. Data compiled by DoFE showed 31,3461 Nepali workers have reached the UAE during the last one and a half years.

Published on: 14 December 2012 | Republica