Participants of a program have said that women’s role is very important to earn remittance for the country, which had contributed significantly for the development of the country.

Speaking at an interaction on ‘Empowering Migrant Women Workers of Nepal’ on the occasion of the International Migrant Day on Sunday, they said that the country is earning more than one billion rupees as remittance in a week through foreign employment.

Dinesh Hari Adhikari, acting Secretary of the Ministry of Labour and Transport Management said that the ministry is going to restructure the Foreign Employment Policy 2042 removing many difficult points, especially for women.

He said the ministry brought a liberal policy to encourage women in foreign employment.

The government is going to provide skilled oriented training to 6500 people and 15 percent of the quota has been separated for women.

Gender expert Dr Chandra Bhadra said that the demand for women workers was greater in low paying jobs. She said that women constituted six to eight percent in foreign employment but contributed 11 percent of the remittance in the country.

Dr Bhadra said that women could save more money than men because they were always guided by a sense of responsibility towards their families.

President of Society of Economic Journalist Bijaya Ghimire said that remittance was second largest contributor in the development of the country after agriculture.

Women have failed to penetrate the international job market at a large scale due to their poor economic standings and weakness of the country, he said.

The number of foreign employment has doubled in the last five years. In the fiscal year 2060/61, the number of foreign employment reached 187,000, according to official data but there were more numbers entering foreign employment abroad through illegal means.

President of Foreign Employment Orientation Association Nepal, Sanjaya Singh KC, said that women had been facing more problems than men in foreign employment. He said that there should be serious concern about the women migrant workers and the remittance earned should be used in a productive way.