The Kuwait administration is preparing to use its police against illegal workers," Poudel said. "Those illegal workers who failed to take advantage of the amnesty will be arrested by the Kuwaiti police and punished." Poudel, however, did not clearly say what sort of punishment will be meted out to the defiant illegal migrant workers.
According to the embassy sources, the defiant illegal workers will be deported. The deported workers will not be allowed to return to Kuwait ever in future. Those who left Kuwait during the amnesty period will be able to return after completing the legal procedures. According to the embassy, some 3,500 Nepali workers, who were overstaying their work visas or changed employer companies without following due procedures, obtained travel documents from the Nepali embassy. Worse, only half of them have returned home by the end of amnesty period.
Around 40,000 Nepali workers are working in Kuwait, mostly in the Kuwait city. Although a huge number of them have overstayed work visas or changed employer companies, they did not come for travel documents in spite of the repeated call by the embassy to use the amnesty opportunities, which came after a hiatus of two years. Previously, the Kuwait government had announced a general amnesty for illegal migrants in 2008.
Of the total illegal Nepali migrants who received travel documents issued by the embassy, only some 1700 workers were found to have returned to Nepal until a few days ago. The main problem faced by Nepali workers in returning home after obtaining travel documents is the crunch of air tickets, Nepali workers in Kuwait said.
According to Hari Krishna Neupane, a Nepali worker in Kuwait, those workers who are willing to return to Nepal now need to pay up to 108 Kuwaiti Dinar for an air ticket, which costs only some 53 Kuwait dinars in normal times. "Around 10,000 illegal workers of different nationalities have obtained travel documents from their respective embassies," Neupane said, adding, "Since all of them want to fly back home at the same time, there is a huge crunch of air tickets.
Meanwhile, some illegal Nepali workers, who did not apply for travel documents, are overconfident that they will easily evade the raid by Kuwait police, which also led to the low number of workers taking advantage of the amnesty. "Many workers I am in contact with in Kuwait are frustrated with the lack of job opportunities back in Nepal," Neupane said. "They say they will better face deportation, if arrested by Kuwait police, rather than return home and become jobless again.
Meanwhile, Cambodian recruitment agencies have decided not to send maids to Kuwait after complaints by human rights groups of abuse by employers, a recruitment official said on Thursday. Impoverished Cambodia is one of Asia’s biggest exporters of maids abroad, a valuable source of foreign exchange.
An Bunhak, president of the Association of Cambodian Recruiting Agencies, said Cambodia had not yet sent any maids to Kuwait and the agencies had decided against so doing because of the country’s record of abuse. "We have received a report from our embassy in Kuwait about abuse of maids and also the report from Human Rights Watch," An said.
We would only send there when there is safety," he said. "According to studies, the respect for maids has not been good so we will not send them to Kuwait and we are doing studies on another country," he said, referring to Qatar. Human Rights Watch says domestic workers in Kuwait who try to escape abusive employers face criminal charges for "absconding" and are unable to change jobs without their employer’s permission.
Indonesia, which has come under fire for its use of the death sentence, has barred its citizens from working in Saudi Arabia after an Indonesian maid was beheaded for murdering her Saudi employer.
