National
Nafea members submit memo to labour minister
Representatives of the Nepal Association of Foreign Employment Agencies (Nafea) on Tuesday submitted a memorandum to Minister for Labour and Employment Deepak Bohara seeking an immediate end to raids on the recruiting agencies.Representatives of the Nepal Association of Foreign Employment Agencies (Nafea) on Tuesday submitted a memorandum to Minister for Labour and Employment Deepak Bohara seeking an immediate end to raids on the recruiting agencies.
Nafea office bearers told Minister Bohara that Nepal Police had infringed upon the jurisdiction of the Department of Foreign Employment by taking up cases related to foreign employment. They also accused the police of misinterpreting the laws and warned that such activities would displace the agencies.
“The Foreign Employment Act-2064 has clearly stated that foreign employment-related offences fall under the jurisdiction of the department or the Foreign Employment Tribunal,” said Bal Bahadur Tamang, former Nafea chairman who was part of the delegation.
Police have raided dozens of recruiting agencies across the country since last week. They seized documents from many agencies for further investigation. Most of the cases have been treated as fraudulent, while some others were handed over to the department.
However, Nafea representatives did not renounce their operating licence despite threatening to do so earlier.
Minister Bohara told the delegation “I will see what I can” after consultation with the Home Ministry and other stakeholders. “I heard that the police are treating the case as human trafficking, which clearly falls under their jurisdiction,” a ministry official quoted Bohara as saying.
Recruiting agencies have also been pressing the government to increase the processing fee, allowing them to charge at least a month’s salary from an aspiring worker. Nafea member agencies said that more than 90 percent recruiting agencies are charging fees much higher than that fixed by the government as “we find it hard to run our business with it”. Under the free-visa-free-ticket scheme introduced in June last year, recruiting agencies can charge a foreign job applicant a maximum of Rs10,000.
Nepal Police has launched a nationwide campaign to crack down on cases of human trafficking carried out in the guise of overseas employment. Police also run a hotline to register cases related to foreign employment.