A few weeks ago, on the occasion of the International Domestic Workers Day, various programs were held around the world including some awareness dialogues, some policy advocacy and some social justice debates. Which is also natural.

This year began on June 16, 2011, the day on which member states of the United Nations' labor body, ILO, adopted Article 189 of the International Framework Convention on Domestic Workers, which is important for domestic workers working in the internal and external labor markets. 

Nepal, as a member of the United Nations, has given a broad theoretical agreement to this important diplomatic blueprint, which is about a decade and a half old, but has not yet ratified it. Therefore, even if Nepal establishes diplomatic relations with any article related to domestic workers, including Article 189 of this Convention, or the entire Convention, it is not binding from the point of view of implementation. However, the moral responsibility of building an internal blueprint for time and society and approving it with due regard for diplomatic dignity remains with the member states. 

Nepal practically does not seem to care about that diplomatic dignity. This is one of many examples of Labor diplomacy not being a priority. Moreover, since most of these domestic workers are women, Nepali society is narrow in terms of gender and our policy-makers view, understand and analyze the issue of gender importance in connection with women's sexuality, so it is not new that the differential approach towards foreign workers in domestic labor starts from the center of Singha Darbar.

Singh Darbar's point of view has been proved by the ban and the exploitation of labor contracts targeted at domestic workers. It is ironic that the state should be more sensitive to domestic labor and workers, which are surrounded by challenges such as the differential approach of the employing country, the complexity of the destination labor market, the migration process of domestic workers including the gender identity of the workers, and the intention of the businessmen to facilitate it.

After the International Domestic Workers' Day, watching, listening and reading the scenes and materials of the program that took place in Nepal for about a week, it seemed that the problem had already been solved. Moreover, according to the government commentary, the problem has been solved several times by the minister. But these are just illusions. Such illusions are neither new in the context of safe, dignified and dignified domestic labor nor unique to other dimensions of migration. So there is nothing to be surprised about such ritualistic regular delusions.

There is no indication that the issue of domestic labor migration, which has become the most complicated issue, will be resolved due to the inability of Nepal's immigration and even labor migration to be organized. The bases that can be said to be linked to criminal activities such as labor trafficking and smuggling have been institutionalized in the state agencies by creating confusion in this dimension.

On the one hand, due to the lack of timely policy framework, hundreds of women are being sold in the destination labor market under the name of domestic workers by misusing visit visas. On the other hand, the departmental minister in charge of immigration management is engrossed in starting another series of trafficking by handing over 5,000 young women to Nepali and Saudi brokers as a test 'pilot' project.

Not only that, they seem to be ignoring the all-round suggestion that the Foreign Employment Act, 2064, which has lost its relevance, should be transformed in a timely manner and make an integrated immigration policy blueprint, and the same old blueprint is being postponed and passed and imposed anyway. His public statements confirm this. His project named as

'Pilot' is another form of selling domestic workers through the visit visa issue. One can only hope that federal parliamentarians will not be confused in this. However, the number of parliamentarians who raised labor issues in the federal parliament can only be counted on the fingers. It is not seen or heard that labor is the priority of most of them, and domestic workers who are sold and smuggled during foreign employment.

Instead of spreading confusion among the unemployed youth by talking cheap, irrelevant and broker-friendly, why doesn't the departmental minister take the time to make the labor agreements with most of the destination countries that have been waiting for renewal for years? And for domestic workers, either through our labor agreement with Israel (GTOG between the government) or through foreign employment agencies, why don't they initiate a strong labor diplomacy like the Philippines? Is there an interest behind his haste to make a ``pilot'' agreement of five thousand with Saudi Arabia? 

The root of the problem of domestic workers lies in the knot in the middle of the complex web of mass labor migration management, unless the leadership of the Ministry of Labor and the people's representatives of the Federal Parliament understand that the complex knot will not be untied, nor will the labor of domestic workers be safe, dignified and orderly. And unless labor of this nature is organized, domestic workers cannot guarantee justice. This is what is happening in the environment of Nepal now.

The state's treatment of domestic workers who go to and from the international labor market is either like labor exploitation by upper-class 'owners' by bringing poor family members from their villages to Kathmandu and other domestic cities, or they will be lured into the smuggling net through brokers based on wrong routes, wrong visas and wrong information, and will be sold after reaching their destination. To understand this challenging dimension, it is enough to remember the case of visit visa. 

And, in spite of this, according to the academic research conducted around the world and the policy surveys conducted by various bodies including the ILO and the Migration Organization, which lead the United Nations labor and migration issues, the contribution of domestic workers' labor and remittances to the economy of the sending and destination countries is significant. Based on the studies and surveys of these organizations, the share of domestic workers in labor migrants data is around 7-9 percent. Most of them are women workers. Therefore, it is not difficult to understand that the character of domestic workers is sexual. Expectations, nature, purpose and management of the work done by them are also gender based and differentiated. 

Just as a family determines the value of labor within its own household by a narrow limit of socio-cultural vision rather than economic, in the same way, the labor market also has a narrow and differentiated approach to domestic workers. And how is the labor of domestic workers who contribute significantly to economic prosperity, socio-cultural capital, technical efficiency and human capacity to be respected, safe and dignified? And if labor is not respected, dignified and safe, how can the social justice of workers be ensured? These are the questions raised by the state's traditional narrow approach to domestic workers, gender discrimination. 

If we look at the trend of the past two and a half decades, there have been dozens of ban decisions on one or the other pretext, which is creating a situation where women who are forced to look for domestic labor employment opportunities in the international labor market for various reasons have to rely on brokers. The latest ban has touched off a decade in which more than half a dozen important questions have been raised, which cannot be ignored in terms of the complexities of domestic workers' own domestic and destination countries' gender, socio-cultural and legal identities, insecurity within labor migration and the nature of labour.

  But they are not impossible to address because they are not without restrictions even in the case of domestic workers in a narrow society like ours. But those countries have removed the restrictions by addressing them internally and in labor agreements with destination countries. There are many examples of labor diplomacy being used in favor of its citizens. 

The Philippines, a country with a remittance-based economy, has systematically sent its domestic workers to countries such as the Gulf and Malaysia, not only remittances, but also approved ILO 189 and 190 (regarding sexual violence in the workplace) and has set a positive example in terms of treating domestic labor as labor outside the home, relatively safe, dignified and respected. For example, when the destination country compares the different treatment, wages, differences between Nepali domestic workers and Filipino domestic workers. 

According to experts and stakeholders in the destination country, there are no grounds to believe that Nepali government officials can discuss issues related to labor rights and social justice when negotiating with their counterparts in the destination country. And how is a labor-friendly labor agreement? And how to stop discrimination against domestic workers? And how are the terms of the restriction addressed? And how to stop institutionalized human trafficking through 'setting' by misusing visas?

Talukdar ministers should answer all these questions or not? To address the challenges created by these complexities, should labor diplomacy, internal policy and managerial strategies with the destination country be used, or should domestic workers sometimes have visit visas or domestic workers' 'pilot' projects to be brokered? What is the purpose of creating all this confusion if not a broker? 

What we need to understand is that the domestic labor women who have not been given an environment to work by their labor market and the state have managed their and their family's livelihood in an easy way by working in the destination country based on unequal, complex, unwritten, informal agreements, and ensured their children's access to education. If he has paid the family debt, he has led to make the family's daily life easier. 

What is also clear from the conversation with the labor-friendly embassy staff who are doing domestic labor in the destination country, the returning workers and their support network, and their families, is that what the domestic workers are looking for from the state is that they have to go through a formal process for their foreign employment-targeted travel.