RAVI MANDAL
KATHMANDU, JUNE 3
Migrant rights activists have criticised the government plan of repatriation migrant workers by making them to pay for all the expenses for returning home and staying in qurantine.
A group of lawyers have filed a writ petition at the Supreme Court, on Wednesday, against the “Order of the Government of Nepal, 2020” challenging the provision regarding the repatriation of Nepali migrant workers from destination countries at their own cost.
According to petitioners, the provision of the Order requiring the (migrant workers) to bear the cost of the airfare and hotel quarantines is inconsistent with the Constitution and governing legislation of Nepal. They have argued that the state should bear all these expenses on behalf of workers who are waiting from labour destination countries after Covid-19 pandemic left them stranded without jobs.
“The provision in the Order (Paragraph 7(c) and 7(d)) regarding the cost of airfare and hotel quarantines to returnees from third countries and the cost of transportation from holding centers to local quarantine centers to the returnees from India border to be borne by returnees themselves contradicts with Section 75(2) of the Foreign Employment Act, 2004 on rescue and repatriation of migrant workers in a situation of disaster and distress,” reads the statement. “This is also against the Sec 33(1) of the act on utilizing the foreign employment welfare fund for the purpose of rescue and repatriation.”
The writ petition demands for bearing the cost of rescue and repatriation of the destitute and unemployed workers who are not in the capacity to bear the cost of both airfare and hotel quarantines by the State.
The writ application filed by Advocates Barun Ghimire, Prabin Subedi, Anurag Devkota, and Binaya Rimal has been registered and scheduled for Sunday (June 7).
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