Seychelles has agreed to sign a bilateral labour agreement with Nepal which would ease the recruitment practices between the two countries and ensure the protection of the rights of Nepalese workers in Seychelles.

Once the agreement is finalised, Seychelles’ officials have been invited to sign the agreement with their Nepalese counterparts on Mount Everest in Nepal to signify the height of Seychelles and Nepal’s relationship

On Friday, the two parties met, which included Seychelles’ Minister for Employment and Social Affairs, Patricia Francourt and Nepal’s Minister for Labour, Employment and Social Security, Krishna Kumar Shrestha, to discuss the details of the agreement, before it can be finalised.

At the moment, there are about 1,176 Nepalese currently working in Seychelles across various sectors, including 429 in tourism, 215 in construction, 130 in the police and prison service and others in real estate, wholesale and retail services.

he agreement is aimed at better preparing Nepalese workers coming to Seychelles, where an induction process for the best candidates, with emphasis on information sharing between the two counties to help in the monitoring of the workers.

With the new agreement, workers from Nepal will also have to ensure that they are registered with registered recruitment agencies in Nepal before they enter employment in Seychelles.

“Once we have the agreement, we will have an outline of the roles and responsibilities of the recruitment agencies,” said Shrestha.

“Without such a framework, what is happening at the moment is that there some people that practice unfair recruitment practices and so both of our countries have to work together to ensure that we can minimise these human trafficking issues,” he added.

According to the Nepalese minister, foreign employment is an area that attracts a lot of Nepalese youth, where over 3 million Nepalese are working in foreign countries contributing a staggering 27 percent of GDP to its national economy.

Francourt furthermore expressed her gratitude that Nepal has seen the need for such an agreement to be signed, adding that her ministry has already received the latest draft of the bilateral labour agreement.

The agreement has been reviewed internally based on previous comments provided by the Employment department and will now be given to a joint task force, who will work to finalise the agreement.

The joint task force will make necessary preparation on the issues such as minimum qualifications for employment, linguistic competence and minimum remuneration.

The Nepalese ministry’s Undersecretary, Thaneswor Bhusal, is leading the joint task force on behalf of Nepal, while Seychelles has yet to identify its members on the task force.

Source: Seychelles News Agency