Organising a press conference, the Coalition for Migrants Rights, the Asian Migrant Centre and the Alliance for Progressive Labour asked the Hong Kong government to lift the visa ban on Nepali workers and ensure their rights as per new ILO standards on domestic workers. [break]
The 100th session of the International Labour Conference, in Geneva, on June 1-17 adopted a set of international standards aimed at improving the working conditions of tens of millions of domestic workers across the world.
The number of Nepali female domestic workers has dwindled to some 600 from 2,000 after the Hong Kong government clamped visa ban on Nepali workers in 2005. Despite repeated efforts by the Nepal government, Hong Kong has remained unwilling to grant visa to Nepali domestic helps.
The three organizations have stated that they have been putting up their efforts to end discriminatory policies on domestic workers in Hong Kong for past 20 years, and have expressed their optimism that now the Hong Kong establishment would be forced to review its discriminatory emigration and other policies on visa, work-permit, and salary of foreign domestic workers.
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