On December 11, the Cabinet meeting decided to issue work permits to Nepalis who have obtained residency cards in Iraq for documentation purposes.
What you should know
The Ministry of Labor, Employment and Social Security has discriminated in the work permits of Nepalis in Iraq. The Ministry of Labor has started granting work permits only to those working in companies. It has stopped granting work permits to domestic workers.
The Cabinet meeting had decided to provide work permits to Nepalis working in Iraq after documenting those who are willing to return to Iraq after taking leave. However, the Ministry of Labor has started providing work permits only to workers working in companies, not to domestic workers.
On December 11, the Cabinet meeting had decided to provide work permits to Nepalis who have obtained residency cards in Iraq. ‘Citizens who have obtained official visas (residency cards) will be provided with work permits if they submit an application along with the original and photocopy of the residency card upon arrival in Nepal,’ the Cabinet decision states.
The Non-Resident Nepali Association, Iraq has also stated that the Department of Foreign Employment discriminated against them. ‘We had demanded that all Nepalis who are in Iraq and are working regularly should be given work permits. The decision of the Council of Ministers also has a clear decision to grant work permits to those who have obtained residency cards,' said Binod Shrestha, President of the Non-Resident Nepali Association (NRNA) Iraq, 'The department has discriminated against Nepali citizens. The discrimination that was not in the decision of the Council of Ministers has been shown in the implementation by the department.'
Shrestha said that despite repeatedly drawing the attention of the Ministry of Labor and the department on behalf of the Nepalis in Iraq, there has been no hearing. 'I received work permits. I work in a company. However, another Nepali who applied with me did not receive work permits. This has not made us happy,' he said, 'When a worker working at home has received all the facilities, he feels safe and is ready to go to work in the same house, the government should facilitate this.'
According to the NRNA Iraq, 30,000 Nepalis are working. 80 percent of them are Nepali women working as domestic workers. The Ministry of Labor had amended the Foreign Employment Management Service Delivery Procedure to allow those who had gone abroad for employment on a visit visa a year ago to be granted work permits. The procedure had made provision for the embassy and department to grant work permits to those who had gone abroad on a visit visa by September 30, 2024. It also addressed domestic workers.
The Ministry of Labor had stated that it had amended the procedure to grant work permits to bring them within the scope of family reunification, worker welfare facilities, and social security. Mira Acharya, Director General of the Department of Foreign Employment, said that work permits have been granted to those working in establishments (companies) in Iraq and the autonomous state of Kurdistan in Iraq. “We have not yet spoken clearly on the issue of domestic workers. We are discussing this with the ministry,” he said. “Iraq is not in the directive made to grant work permits to domestic workers. It seems that it should be amended and Iraq should be added.’
Meena Magar, 35, from Taplejung, who has been working in an Iraqi man’s house in Sulaymaniyah, in the autonomous Kurdistan region of Iraq, for 12 years, said that she did not return home because she could not arrange a setting in Nepal. ‘If you return to Nepal on leave, you cannot come to Iraq again, you have to arrange a setting. There is no guarantee that you will get a setting. If you could return with a work permit, you would have gone home on a month’s leave.’ Her monthly salary has now reached $700. She complains that her employer has not allowed her to return to Nepal even though she has asked her to meet her mother.
