17/08/2021
(1) New Message!
×
(/)
Pariyar, like others, was back in Nepal without any money or even any belongings.
“The company did not care about us,” said Pariyar. “Everything we had was left in our room where we never returned.”
But he lost not only his belongings or items, but something more valuable—his hard-earned money.
The company owed him two and a half months’ salary and extra amount for overtime work.
According to him, the amount totals Qatari Riyals 4,500 which is equivalent to Rs146,778 as per Friday’s exchange rate.
Pariyar is among hundreds of Nepalis who have returned home virtually empty-handed as victims of wage theft
(https://kathmandupost.com/national/2020/07/04/jobless-and-without-pay-migrant-workers-are-returning-home-but-they-have-norecourse-for-compensation)since the pandemic struck.
Although the Nepali workers returning home without salary, bonus and other company benefits and experiencing arbitrary breach of
contracts have been common for years, the issue of wage theft became more pronounced after the pandemic.
According to migrant rights activists, wage theft (https://wagetheft.net.au/what-is-wage-theft/) can be conceived as an amalgamation of a
number of different types of labor rights abuses and occurs when the worker is not paid as per the law.
According to the Pravasi Nepali Coordination Committee (PNCC), a group working for the welfare of migrant workers, 720 cases of wage theft
involving Nepalis have been recorded in various labour destinations since the start of the pandemic. These employers owe the victimised
workers around Rs 4 million, according to the committee.
“Although Nepali workers have been facing the issue of non-payment of wages (https://kathmandupost.com/national/2017/11/23/poortreatment-of-workers-goes-on) for several years, the pandemic exacerbated the situation,” Som Prasad Lamichhane, executive director of the
committee, told the Post.
Wage theft includes total or partial non-payment of a worker’s remuneration, payment of salaries below the minimum wage, non-payment of
overtime, non-payment of contractually owed benefits, the non-negotiated reduction of salaries and retention of dues upon one’s contract
termination.
As per the committee’s statistics, the highest number of wage theft incidents have been reported from Qatar with 362 Nepalis returning home
unpaid, followed by Saudi Arabia (157), Bahrain (134), Malaysia (58), the UAE (17) and Kuwait (2).
According to Lamichhane, these cases were documented by the committee’s outreach coordinators and volunteers in Nepal and labour
destination countries, migrant workers themselves who came in contact with the committee, its rescue units and shelter teams.
“But the actual numbers could well be beyond the figures we have compiled from our resources and migrant workers who reached out to us,”
said Lamichhane. “If a worker suffers wage theft that means the main objective of their decision to migrate is not fulfilled and it can have longterm impacts on them and their families.”
https://kathmandupost.com/national/2021/08/15/victims-of-wage-theft-migrant-nepalis-are-losing-hope-of-recovering-their-money?fbclid=IwAR3nj…
3/9