Kathmandu, September 13
The government is planning to legalise activities of agents of foreign employment recruitment agencies with an amendment to the Foreign Employment Act.
The final draft of the amendment bill prepared by the Ministry of Labour and Employment says the agents will be legalised to regulate business of recruitment agencies. The draft has already been submitted to the Minister for Labour, Farmullah Mansoor.
Experts in the sector, however, say the legalisation may give a rise to fraudulent activities.
The experts had suggested that the government scrap the provision allowing the agencies to keep such agents.
After advocates of migrant workers’ rights criticised the system of providing such licence, the government had not issued any licence in past one year, nor had it renewed the old ones. However, the government is likely to resume distributing licence after the endorsement of law.
These agents in general are accused of demanding a huge sum of money from foreign employment aspirants while the government allows recruitment agencies to take as much as Rs 10,000 only. Likewise, their unnecessary activeness blocked the implementation of free visa and free ticket system, according to officials.
