The government will not be signing a pact to send domestic workers to Malaysia any time soon. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) has sent Malaysia only a draft agreement related to general workers for signing in the first phase.Malaysia, the largest labour market for Nepali foreign employment aspirants had of late been showing interest in signing a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to hire Nepali domestic workers, besides other general workers. Since the MoU related to all workers is the major priority, the ministry recently only sent a draft of it for signing, according to an official at MoFA.

Based on the Malaysian government’s interest, the Ministry of Labour and Employment (MoLE) had sent two draft MoUs (one for general workers and another for domestic workers) to MoFA to forward them officially to the Malaysian government. The draft MoU of domestic workers was sent back to MoLE citing that the proposal to sign two agreements at the same time could divert the focus to be made on general workers. 

“A draft of the much needed agreement on general workers has been sent by MoFA with needful discussions with stakeholders and inputs,” said Buddhi Bahadur Khadka, spokesperson of MoLE. He said that as Malaysia was also a comparatively good market for domestic workers, they would be holding additional discussions to send such workers there.

Despite talks for many years, the two governments so far have not been able to seal a deal to protect the interests of workers by devising a legal framework. During an official visit of Malaysian Human Resources Minister Richard Riot Jaem in August last year, both the governments had agreed to sign MoU for general workers at the earliest.

The agreement will fix minimum wage, working hours, leave, healthcare, food and accommodation services, among others. Nepali workers have been facing problems of higher service charge collection from recruiting agencies, lengthy administrative pre-departure procedures, low salary, and fewer facilities to workers against what is agreed in the labour contract, among others. 

To go to Malaysia, an aspirant has to pay a maximum of Rs 80,000 recruitment fee to foreign employment agencies as per the government set rate. However, in reality, outbound workers have been found to be paying as high as Rs 120,000. Once the agreement is signed, Malaysia will be responsible for adopting internationally accepted provisions to safeguard the rights of Nepali workers, according to MoLE officials. 

In the first eight months of the current fiscal year, Malaysia absorbed a total of 152,834 Nepali workers including female workers. It is estimated that more than 800,000 Nepalis are currently working in Malaysia and around 50,0000 of them are working illegally.

Published on: 23 March 2015 | The Himalayan Times