KATHMANDU- The Nepal Association of Foreign Employment Agencies (NAFEA) staged a demonstration in front of the Immigration Department today, voicing their concerns over the refusal of work-permitted migrant workers to fly abroad from the Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA).

On July 13, the TIA Immigration Department turned back a total of 117 workers with valid work permits who were scheduled to travel to Kuwait.

Following this incident, NAFEA protested in front of the Immigration Department located at Kalikasthan in Kathmandu.

The Immigration Office barred these migrant workers from flying, citing suspicions surrounding their visas.

In two separate instances, 101 workers bound for Kuwait via Salam Air on Wednesday evening and 16 workers scheduled to travel through Kuwait Air on Thursday morning were also denied permission to fly.

Investigations revealed that these workers, who had acquired work permits from the Foreign Employment Department to work for various companies through different manpower agencies, were being sent abroad under the guise of domestic workers.

Such deployment of Nepali workers to Kuwait as domestic workers is not permitted.

Further scrutiny exposed discrepancies between the type of visa mentioned in their passports and the visa documents found in their luggage, with the manpower companies being responsible for creating these conflicting documents.

Jhalak Ram Adhikari, the Director-General of the Immigration Department, confirmed that the presence of varying visa documents provided by the manpower companies led to the denial of flying permission.

He stressed that sending Nepali workers to Kuwait as domestic workers is against the regulations.

It is noteworthy that nearly half of the workers turned back from TIA were women.