Top Bahadur Magar, chairman of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), said that human rights of employees working in entertainment and hospitality sectors should be protected because all people have rights to work freely with dignity in any sector.
Speaking at the second national conference of employees working in the entertainment and hospitality sectors held in Kathmandu on Monday, chairman Magar said that separate law should be enacted to safeguard the rights of employees working in the entertainment and hospitality sectors.
The two-day national conference kicked off from Monday to discuss the problems faced by employees working in the sectors.
Highlighting the aim of the conference, Tara Bhandari, President of Biswas Nepal, said that around 800,000 employees are working in entertainment and hospitality sector concealing their original identities because Nepali society sees these sectors as an undignified sector.
The conference is organised to raise voice to ensure rights of employees working in this sector and to introduce it as a dignified area to work in the society, she said.
According to Bishwas Nepal, a non-governmental organisation working for the rights of employees of entertainment and hospitality sector for one-and-a-half decades now, around 8, 00,000 people are engaged in these sector.
Madhu Giri, executive director of Biswas Nepal, said it’s hard to figure out the exact number of employees working in these sectors because of a lack of official data.
Dan Bahadur Malla, spokesperson for Human Trafficking Investigation Bureau, said that all employees working in entertainment and hospitality sectors should be aware about their working sector’s nature and their rights because internal and external trafficking is flourishing in the name of good job placement.
Sharing the booming human tracking in the entertainment and hospitality sectors, he said that 386 people were rescued from being trafficked from the fiscal year 2018/19 to 2021/22. Of them, 201 were females and 185 males.
He urged all job providers to provide minimum monthly wage provisioned by the Labor Act to make them financially strong and said police and civil society should work jointly to minimise human trafficking and reduce other kinds of sexual harassment and abuse.
Ram Prasad Subedi, president of NGO Federation of Nepal, said that security bodies should provide security to the entertainment and hospitality sectors.
Sharing the hardships she routinely faces at work, Shanti Maya Tamang, an employee of entertainment sector, said, “We have no appointment letter, no identity card system, no weekly leave system and no other service and benefits”. She also said the working environment has not been healthy.
“Workers are facing mental and physical problems because of gender and other discrimination. Despite that, there is no environment to speak for the rights of workers. Workers are facing problems in renting rooms because the society views the industries as undignified sector.”
Source : TRN,
