The Department of Foreign Employment has seen a marked decrease in forgery cases after it adopted informative new stickers and online access codes on May 23.

Now that colourful informative stickers have been replaced ordinary ones, the Nepali Embassy in New Delhi has not reported a single case of sticker forgery.

The DoFE has also given two missions abroad—India and Kuwait—online access to detailed information on migrant workers who have recieved final work permits from the department.
Prior to this, 99 percent of the stickers the embassy scrutinised turned out to be counterfeit, said Acting Ambassador to India Khaganath Adhikari.

Some two months ago, a prospective Nepali migrant worker bound for the United Arab Emirates (UAE) was sent back from the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi after Indian police discovered that her passport lacked a labour sticker.

To their surprise, the worker returned to the airport the very next day with a labour sticker glued to her passport. Smelling a rat, Delhi police then informed the Nepali Embassy, which cross-checked with the DoFE in Kathmandu. The sticker turned out to be fake.

This is just one incident among a spate of phony activities pertaining to forgery of labour stickers and documents rampant on Indian soil.

Under the new provision, separate coloured stickers have been assigned to workers flying to Gulf countries on an individual effort (blue) and via manpower agencies (red).

“The new stickers also have additional security features vis-a-vis the previous ones,” said Director General of the DoFE, Purna Chandra Bhattarai. The new sticker is bigger in size, contains the name of the foreign company providing employment and the type of work.

However, Nepali officials are still wary of the new provision, as they think security measures are still inadquate to curb forgeries.

“We have secured the labour stickers to the maximum level that our government press can deliver,” said Bhattarai. He said the government is planning to further strengthen security features in the coming months.

“Stickers with barcodes are in the pipeline. As the costs are very high, it will take some time,” he said.

Recently, the DoFE also provided Nepali embassies with an access code so that the authenticity of the stickers can be cross checked even in Delhi.

“With the access code, the process of cross checking is now faster and easier,” said Than Prasad Sharma, the attache at the embassy.

The Indian route Foreign Employment Regula-tion 2008 had stipulated that international migration could only take place through the Kathmandu port. However, the regulation was amended last year to allow migrant workers to fly from any port provided they had a ‘No Objection Letter’ from the Nepali embassy concerned, along with a labour sticker.

This provision has been misused by pimps, agents and those involved in forging the stickers. Agents started duping illiterate Nepali workers, especially women, with promises of free visas and air travel, sending them to risky jobs in foreign countries.

According to a report published by UN Women this June, at least 30-40 Nepali women migrants fly to Gulf countries daily through India. Nearly 20,000 to 25,000 women are believed to be working in Saudi Arabia alone, most of them illegal. These illegal migrants are more vulnerable to abuse.

Published on: 19 July 2012 | The Kathmandu Post