Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch, agreed it should not be just left up to the host country to treat workers properly.
“South Asian countries, which are a large group of senders, should work together to set minimum standards,” Ganguly told AFP.
“Since remittances are a big part of the South Asian economy, the SAARC countries should join together to demand better worker protections.”
Khadka said that Qatari government officials had pledged that migrants would be protected when they held talks with officials from Nepal’s labour ministry and foreign ministry in June.
“They assured us that their government will take action against the companies that violate the labourers’ rights but the workers had to lodge complaints detailing the exploitation and the violation of labour rights.
“So, it’s up to the Qatar government to safeguard our workers and we have our embassy to monitor it,” he added.
Nepal received 430 billion rupees ($434 million) sent back by its roughly one million migrant workers in 2012, according to Nepal’s central bank, accounting for 22 percent of GDP in a country where around one in three young people are out of work.
“We won’t stop sending the workers just because their exploitation has been highlighted now. We can’t stop it because that’s the only major employment opportunity for the majority of Nepali youths,” Khadka said.
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