Lawmakers pledge to make efforts to ratify ILO Convention 189

Kathmandu, June 22: Federal and Provincial Assembly (PA) lawmakers have pledged to make every effort to get the International Convention on Domestic Workers (ILO Convention No. 189) endorsed.     

Speaking at a discussion programme organized by Yuwalaya, a youth-led non-profit organisaiton, in Kathmandu today, the parliamentarians acknowledged Nepal’s status as one of the top countries sending domestic workers abroad and expressed their commitment to pressuring the government to ratify the Convention.     

PA member Sushma Bhujel echoed the urgent need for Nepal to endorse the Convention to improve the rights of domestic workers.     

According to the latest national data, there are around 200,000 domestic workers in Nepal, with women making up around 80 percent of that workforce. Due to the lack of legal recognition, domestic workers in the country are often denied basic rights such as fair remuneration, health benefits, insurance and paid leave.     

Participants in the discussion strongly stressed the importance of ratifying the Convention to ensure dignity, protection, and justice for domestic workers in Nepal.     

Similarly, raising their strong concerns over cases of physical and sexual assaults and various forms of violence against Nepali women working as domestic help abroad, they stressed the need to ratify the Convention.     

If the Convention is endorsed by Nepal, it will ensure the workers' right to safe, healthy and decent working conditions, it was stressed during the discussion.     

The Europe, Israel and the Gulf countries remain as the major host nations for Nepali migrant labour force going as domestic workers.     

Lawmaker LP Sanwa Limbu said since the domestic work is one of the largest section of employment sector in the world, the services and facilities available to workers are determined not only by laws but also by society, attitudes, and cultural values.     

Due to the delay in Nepal signing the agreement, it was reported that many security guards and other domestic workers who went to the Gulf countries have been deprived of minimum wages and have had to suffer from numerous hardships and troubles.     

The organization, which has been raising issues related to youth concerns and domestic workers, has consulted and sought opinions from members of the Industry, Commerce, and Labour and Consumer Committee under the House of Representatives, as well as labour experts from the Bagmati Province.     

Although Nepal is a party to the said agreement, due to the lack of laws enacted regarding this matter and the non-approval of the convention, domestic workers, or workers in the informal sector, have been deprived of the minimum services and facilities they should be entitled to.     

Committee member Kantika Sejuwal expressed the opinion that even though there are three tiers of government in the country, there is no effective mechanism to address the rights of domestic workers and to maintain statistics.     

On that occasion, representatives of domestic workers and active organizations in the trade union sector stated that if the agreement is signed, women workers as domestic workers will have the opportunity to confidently use Nepal's airports instead of hiding.     

They suggested that workers going for such foreign employment should be provided with knowledge about subject-specific skills, language, the culture of the place, the use of the latest technologies, and information about the laws.     

MP Sapana Rajbhandari and Sita Mijar expressed the opinion that it is necessary to put pressure on the government to hold family reunification for domestic workers and to create a people-friendly law for making the government accountable.     

Previously, Bijaya Rai Shrestha, a representative of the Migrant Women Workers Group (MWWG), stated that due to the lack of approval for the convention, workers in informal sectors both abroad and in the country have been deprived of the minimum wages set by the government.     

The chairman of the organizing body Yuwalaya, Dharma Raj Rimal, emphasized the need for a unified effort to ratify the agreement.(RSS)