21/10/2020
Wage theft of migrants during pandemic | Nepali Times
Each worker had paid above Rs250,000 to get a job as a driver, which was supposed to
pay a basic monthly salary of Rs95,000 each.
Nine of the workers Nepali Times spoke to had spent between 7 to 11 months in the UAE,
with half of them not working at all or working just for a month.
“The costs kept adding up beyond what we paid the recruiter, for the driver’s license, and
the wages were considerably lower than what we were originally promised,” said one of
the workers. “Not only were we unable to send any money home, we had to ask our
family to send us money so we could survive during the lockdown.”
In the minds of Nepal’s migrant workers (https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/inthe-minds-of-nepals-migrant-workers/), Upasana Khadka
Many of the workers had a choice between sleeping in the park or somehow making it
back alive to Nepal. After getting back, they decided to file the complaint jointly given
their common recruiters and the employer.
Nepali workers ran out of money waiting for repatriation flights from UAE. “Back then, the
priority was to somehow make it alive to Nepal,” said one of them. Some were later supported by
the NRNA and the Nepal embassy.
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