Kathmandu, Nepal — Qatar’s emir landed in Nepal on Tuesday on his first visit to the South Asian country, after visiting Bangladesh and the Philippines, where conditions are expected to improve for migrant workers in the Gulf state and for a Nepali student still being held hostage by Hamas. on the agenda.
Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani will meet Nepalese dignitaries, including President Ram Chandra Poudyal and Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal, during his two-day visit.
Qatar is home to about 400,000 Nepalese workers, mostly in construction and manual jobs. Concerns about working in extreme heat (which could exceed 40°C), inadequate housing facilities and abuse have increased in recent years.
New York-based Human Rights Watch called on Qatar, Nepal and Bangladesh in a statement Sunday to prioritize labor protections for migrant workers during the emir’s visit.
“It is important… to go beyond exchanging diplomatic pleasantries over their long-standing working ties and seize this moment to publicly commit to concrete, enforceable protections that address the serious abuses that migrant workers in Qatar continue to face,” the communicated to Michael Page. said the agency’s deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa.
The statement added that while jobs in Qatar have allowed migrant workers to “send remittances to their families,” many suffered abuses, including “wage theft, contract violations, and chronic illnesses related to unsafe working conditions.”
Nepalese officials are also likely to seek Al Thani’s help to free a local, Bipin Joshi, who is being held hostage by the Palestinian militant group Hamas. Joshi was among 17 Nepalese students studying agriculture at the Alumim kibbutz near the Gaza Strip when Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7. Ten of the students were killed, six were injured and Joshi was held captive.
Although there has been no information on his condition or whereabouts, Nepalese officials said they believed he was still alive.
The sudden attack by Hamas in October killed 1,200 people and about 250 more were taken hostage. This has sparked a war that has so far killed more than 34,000 Palestinians in Gaza, at least two-thirds of them women and children, according to the local Health Ministry.
Qatar has been a key intermediary during the war in Gaza. Along with the United States and Egypt, he was instrumental in helping negotiate a brief cessation of fighting in November that led to the release of dozens of hostages.
A spokesman for Qatar’s Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday that his country was being evaluated over its role in mediating talks between Israel and Hamas on a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. He also said discussions were taking place about Hamas’ presence in Qatar, where the militant group has had a political office in the capital, Doha, for years.
France and Qatar brokered an agreement in January to send medicine to dozens of hostages held captive by Hamas.