Kathmandu, May 11

With an aim to send workers to those destinations that guarantee to provide minimum wages to migrants, the government has started the process to sign bilateral labour agreements with Turkey and Poland.

Ram Prasad Ghimire, joint secretary at the Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Security, informed that the ministry has forwarded proposals to the aforementioned nations.

“We exchanged a draft of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Turkey last month,”

Ghimire said, adding that the ministry will soon forward a draft of the MoU to Poland too.

As per him, both the nations have been positive about signing a labour pact with Nepal. “Turkey and Poland have both mentioned about its willingness to hire Nepali migrant workers citing the honesty and hardworking nature of Nepalis,” Ghimire added.

Earlier, Nepal and Turkey had held talks to hire Nepali migrant workers through government to government (G2G) model for various technical and non-technical jobs. However, negotiations are still underway.

Currently, Turkish and Polish companies recruit Nepali workers through various recruitment agencies. It has been alleged that Nepali recruitment agencies have been selecting workers by charging a huge amount of money from the job aspirants.

Likewise, many people reportedly fly to Turkey and Poland with fake documents every year.

According to the labour ministry, when signing a labour agreement with Turkey and Poland, the government will focus on including major provisions of existing labour pacts that have been signed with other countries, like supplying workers at zero-cost. Moreover, it will ensure that the migrants are provided the minimum wages.

Ghimire also said the government will ensure the employer firms in both Turkey and Poland bear recruitment service charges, two-way airfare, visa fee, health check-up fee, security screening and levy charges of Nepali migrants, among others.

He further informed that the destination countries’ firms or the countries themselves will also have to bear all expenses related to accommodation and provide security at the workplace, among others, during the contract period.