Roshan Sedhai

Families of hundreds of Nepali migrants who died in Qatar but were denied compensation owing to the country’s “discriminatory” insurance policy should be reimbursed, stakeholders in Nepal said.

Calls for compensation to the families of migrant workers come amid Qatar’s pledge for full life and health insurance cover, among others, for immigrants. Labour and Social Welfare Minister of Qatar Abdullah Saleh Mubarak Al-Khulaifi on Sunday told Nepali officials that his government was “positive” for ensuring rights of migrants, including full life and health insurance cover through amendment in the existing laws.

At least 70 percent of Nepali migrant workers who died in Qatar are deprived of compensation. In the past four years alone, 684 Nepali workers died in Qatar, according to the Foreign Employment Promotion Board. The Board had issued reimbursement to families of 205 deceased workers in 2013/14, 110 in 2012/13, 130 in 2011/12, 125 in 2010-11 and 114 in 2009-10, though the exact number of death is said to be higher.

Foreign employment experts said providing due compensation “matters a lot” to families of the migrant workers as most of these families are poor. They said that lives of many families have shattered due to death of their bread-winners abroad. Many families have been displaced or are failing to meet daily necessities or even compelled to forfeit meager property for failing to pay debt they had taken to send their relatives abroad.

An Amnesty International report published in 2011 states that Nepali workers pay as high as 60 percent interest rate for money they borrow from money lender to go abroad.

“Death of migrant workers should not be looked as death of just a single individual,” said Bandita Sijapati, a Nepal-based researcher who has authored several books on labour migration. “When someone, let’s say a 22-year old man, dies, it affects everyone in the family from children to parents. In society like Nepal where the whole family usually depends on the earning of one person, death of a bread-winner is bound to affect everyone,” Sijapati said, adding, “Mainly women who become widow at a young age endure the worst hardship and are forced to live with stigma.”

Ganesh Gurung, who has been closely studying foreign employment in Nepal, said lives of the family members will turn upside down if the deceased is a sole bread-earner, as it happens with most of the cases. “Besides giving 24-hour insurance cover, Qatar, in coordination with other stakeholders including the employer, should develop a special package to families of workers who died there. It will be a great help for them,” Gurung said.

Bishnu Rimal, president of General Federation of Nepalese Trade Unions, said legal provisions in Qatar and most of the Gulf states to provide insurance cover to just workplace deaths have promoted serious institutional discrimination.

“Sadly most of our workers die of causes like heart attack, cardiac arrest or even suicide due to work pressure. If it was not work pressure, why do only workers from South Asian countries like Nepal and India, and not any Qatari or westerners, die? Or why don’t we hear such widespread reports of cardiac arrest in Nepal?” questioned Rimal.

Experts, including Rimal, however, said providing full insurance cover is just one of several things Qatar needs to do. They said Qatar should promote worker friendly atmosphere by guaranteeing their rights to cost-free recruitment, minimum wage, safe and secure work environment, decent living condition, health care, weekly leave, over-time pay, proper rest, gratuity and similar welfare.

Many stakeholders said condition of migrant is unlikely to change unless Qatar repels Kafala system. The Kafala or sponsorship system, which some rights groups say have enabled exploitation and forced labour, is “a system of control and, in the migration context, it is a way for governments to delegate oversight and responsibility of migrants to private citizens or companies.”

Migrants workers in Qatar and Saudi Arabia even require migrant workers to have official “exit permits” to leave the country, while rest of the Gulf countries have adopted less harsh form of the system.

According to Priyanka Motaparthy, a Cairo-based researcher formerly working with the Human Rights Watch, complaining puts migrant workers in conflict with their sponsor, who has the power to cancel their residence visa and have them deported.

Rimal said Qatar needs Nepali workers as much as we need them. “It is an agreement of necessities,” he said.

Buddhi Bahadur Khadka, spokesperson at the Ministry of Labour and Employment (MoLE), said there has been slow but noteworthy progress in areas of promoting labour rights and welfare. “We have raised several issues, including that of insurance with the minister. We will keep raising these issues in similar platforms,” Khadka said, adding that getting an insurance cover is a worker’s basic right.

Qatari minister meets Prez, PM

KATHMANDU: A Qatari delegation led by Labour and Social Welfare Minister of Qatar Abdullah Saleh Mubarak Al-Khulaifi paid courtesy call on  President Ram Baran Yadav and Prime Minister Sushil Koirala on Monday. During the meeting, Koirala extended best wishes for success of the FIFA World Cup 2022 going to be held in Qatar. Koirala also lauded Qatar’s effort in areas of migrant workers’ rights and welfare. The Qatari minister also praised contribution of Nepali workers to Qatar’s economic growth and infrastructure development. The delegation, which arrived in Kathmandu on April 4, is scheduled to return on Tuesday. (PR)

Migrants’ concerns

- 24-hour insurance cover

- Compensation to families of the deceased workers

- Cost-free recruitment

- Ending Kafala system

- Ensuring worker friendly environment

Published on : Published on: 7 April 2015 | The Kathmandu Post