Institute for Migrant Rights
Railway line at Cianjur station, c. 1890 · KITLV, CC BY 4.0

Migration Jurisprudence from the South › Nepal

Order to use the Foreign Employment Welfare Fund for repatriation

Supreme Court of Nepal · Nepal · 2020-06 · National court

Citation: [writ number to be added]
Type of case: Constitutional and human rights
Outcome: Decided for the migrant side

Question

Must the government pay to bring home Nepali workers stranded abroad during the pandemic who cannot afford the airfare?

What the court decided

Yes. Making stranded workers pay their own way home was contrary to sections 32, 33 and 74 of the Foreign Employment Act 2007; the Welfare Fund, built from workers’ own contributions, must be used to repatriate those in vulnerable situations.

In plain language

During COVID-19, many Nepali workers lost their jobs abroad and could not pay for a flight home. The Supreme Court ordered the government to use the welfare fund that workers pay into to bring them back.

Dalam bahasa sederhana

Selama COVID-19, banyak pekerja Nepal kehilangan pekerjaan di luar negeri dan tidak mampu membeli tiket pulang. Mahkamah Agung memerintahkan pemerintah memakai dana kesejahteraan yang dibayar para pekerja untuk memulangkan mereka.

Pertanyaan: Apakah pemerintah wajib membiayai pemulangan pekerja Nepal yang terdampar di luar negeri selama pandemi dan tidak mampu membeli tiket?

What happened afterwards

  • 2020-06: Order issued.
  • 2020-08: Labour attaché posts filled; ordered shelters in destination countries not set up (reported).

Sources

Open this decision in the interactive collection (compare, filter, Indonesian view, downloads).

Cite as: Institute for Migrant Rights (2026), Migration Jurisprudence from the South, version 0.1, https://theimr.org/court-decisions/d/np-welfare-fund-2020/. This page summarizes a court decision for research and advocacy; it is not legal advice.

For researchers

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The coded variables support statistical analysis in law: cross-national comparison, regression and event-history designs, and law and economics questions such as how recruitment fees, wage protection and limits on changing employer affect migrant workers. The data can be downloaded for replication.

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