KATHMANDU: At a meeting of the parliamentary Committee on Industry, Commerce, and Labor and Consumer Affairs on Monday, Haris Chandra Ghimire, Joint Secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs disclosed the fact that Nepali women working in Gulf countries were sold by their own family members.
He shared his experience of working in the Nepali Embassy in Saudi Arabia for four years and informed the cruel and inhumane acts that were committed against Nepali women. “Since women from other countries are tough and courageous, Nepali women are preferred as domestic workers in Saudi Arabia,” he said.
At the same meeting, former NCP’s Labor Minister and MP Mukunda Neupane recalled the incident where people were shouting slogans against him when he had stopped sending women to gulf countries as domestic workers. He said that party leaders used to threaten the secretary through non gazetted officers while they were trying to stop sending domestic workers from going to the gulf countries.
“Why have the leaders arrested the non-gazetted officers? Since the staff organization belongs to the non-gazetted officers of Congress, Nepal Communist Party, the cooperation of these officers will make the Secretary happy. It’s not about making laws relating to sending women to work, he said and emphasized on stopping women going abroad for work.”
The Joint Secretary narrated an incident during his stay in Saudi Arabia:
There was a woman from Nawalparasi who was working in Saudi Arabia. It was four o’clock in the morning. Beside the quarters where I lived, there lived a manager working for a Syrian company. He rang the doorbell of my room at four o’clock. Then he said, “Ghimireji, I am sorry to have disturbed you. However, there is a woman on the street who has been stranded for the past two hours. I think she’s a citizen of your country. Please take care of her.”
I immediately went to the street and her condition rendered me speechless. Her clothes were torn, she couldn’t speak Nepali and was from a Dehati community. She had been gang-raped and pushed from the third floor. I called my staff and she was given my wife’s clothes to wear. Since her limbs were broken and she was in a critical condition, she was treated for four months.
She was treated according to the doctor’s advice. We went to the Human Rights Commission and the police administration. However, there was no hearing anywhere. She didn’t reveal the name of the relative who had sent her. She called her relatives in Nepal to receive her after her treatment when she had the ticket with her to go back to Nepal. Our people are being sold from within their family. This is just a representative example. There are many such examples.
We have rescued and sent back many women from Saudi Arabia. There were more women who were trafficked. We had started keeping the record after the number was exceeding 5-6 thousands. Out of that record, a list of 43 agents were sent. An agent officer sent a letter to our officer threatening him personally blaming him for threatening his livelihood and the officer had to walk away helpless.
