The New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) has asked the government of Nepal to lift its ban on women under 30 working in Gulf countries. Citing widespread sexual abuse and exploitation, the Cabinet decided in early August to restrict women under the age of 30 from travelling to Gulf countries for work.

“Instead [the Nepal government] should improve protections so domestic workers can migrate safely—such as by ensuring full monitoring and accountability of recruitment agencies in Nepal. At the same time, governments in the Gulf should adopt long overdue labour protections and immigration reforms, including ending the discriminatory treatment of domestic workers, to combat abuse of Nepali and other migrant workers,” the HRW stated on Tuesday.

The Nepali ban is in response to several publicised cases of the abuse of Nepali domestic workers, which include long work hours, unpaid wages, and physical or sexual abuse. The recent move comes two years after Nepal lifted a 12-year ban on women migrating to Middle Eastern countries for work.

“Nepal is right to be concerned about its migrant domestic workers, but imposing a ban on women under 30 from traveling to the Gulf does not solve the problem and discriminates against young women,” said Nisha Varia, senior women’s rights researcher at HRW. “A better strategy would be to crack down on abusive recruitment practices, ensure that women migrate with an enforceable contract in hand, and equip embassies to respond quickly to complaints of abuse.”

Official Nepali emigration figures show that as many as 1,000 migrants pass daily through the Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu while many others leave by land through the porous Indian border. Many domestic workers have positive experiences and collectively send home billions of dollars as remittances each year to Asia. Others face abuse.

A ban on work in the Gulf may drive women desperate for work to migrate through irregular channels, placing them at greater risk of exploitation and trafficking, said the HRW. The organisation interviewed Nepali domestic workers in Saudi Arabia during the previous ban and found that they were especially likely to encounter abuse. The workers had no information about their rights, no employment contracts and were more likely to migrate with illegal recruiters who left them heavily indebted. Even if they faced abuse from employers, their precarious legal status made it difficult for them to approach or receive assistance from authorities.

Instead of a blanket ban on young women that denies them important employment opportunities, Nepal’s government should work with other labour-sending governments to demand stronger protections for migrant workers in the Gulf, the Human Rights Watch said. It urged the Nepali government to improve the training of migrant workers, monitor recruitment agencies rigorously and ensure that migrant women workers know where to get help needed.

Published on: 15 Aug 2012 | The Kathmandu Post