Local Government Operation Act 2017 entrusts the local governments with the duty to collect data of local labour force, including those that are going to foreign countries for employment and those that return home from destination countries.

The Act also stipulates that local governments can impart training to foreign bound Nepali workforce and carry out literacy programmes for them but most of the local levels are not performing these tasks.

While there may be other reasons for non-implementation of these duties, ignorance remains the chief reason for it, said Founding Chair of People Forum for Human Rights Shom Prasad Luitel. He said judicial committees of local levels should be made aware of their roles, including their local level's duty to protect the rights of migrant workers, collect migrant workers' data, utilise the skills of returnees and help returnees reintegrate into society.

People forum held a two-day training programme for office bearers of local judicial committees, including the coordinator and members of those committees. Eighteen office bearers of judicial committees took part in the programme. Resource persons trained the participants of the two-day programme on laws related to foreign employment and role of local levels, among other things.

Deputy Mayor of Dakshinkali Municipality Basanti Tamang Dangol told THT all members of judicial committees, and not only coordinators should be made aware of their roles particularly their roles in ensuring justice for migrant workers who are duped by fraudsters in the name of foreign employment.

Dangol said that there should be a provision to obligate foreign country bound migrant workers to get at least one document from their local level in the form of recommendation letter which could help the concerned local levels keep data of how many residents left for foreign employment.

At present we do not have any data of those youths that leave our local levels for foreign countries. We are approached by the family only when their members working in a foreign country face difficulty or when they are in trouble," Dangol said. Local levels, she added, could make action plan to create enough jobs in their own jurisdictions and to providing other services required to ensure safe and orderly migration only when they have exact data of migrant workers, returnees and the skills learnt by returnee migrant workers in foreign countries.

Luitel said that his office had plans to train more office bearers of judicial committees in some more districts in the coming months.

Published on: 31 March 2023 | The Himalayan Times