Naya Nepal: Built on Whose Back?

• Nepal's 2017 Labor Act remains largely ineffective, as 84.6% of the workforce operates within the informal economy, excluded from statutory protections.
• The state fails to enforce minimum wage standards and working hour caps, despite its legal commitments.
• Labor exploitation persists across diverse sectors, from impoverished brick kiln workers to highly educated medical professionals.

The Informal Economy and Infrastructure

• Brick kiln workers, often accompanied by their children, labor in unregulated conditions to build the physical foundation of Nepal's urban development.
• Statutory minimum wages of NPR 19,550 are ignored by employers who pay based on piecework, causing income to vanish during production lulls.

Failure to Protect Credentialed Professionals

• Approximately 13,000 medical personnel recently protested in Kathmandu against mandatory 36-hour shifts and 100-hour work weeks.
• These conditions violate the Labor Act's 12-hour daily and 72-hour weekly duty limits.
• The inability to protect organized medical staff highlights deep systemic failures that leave vulnerable workers with even less recourse.

Migrant Labor and Accountability

• The Foreign Employment Board reported ~2,200 Nepali migrant deaths in Qatar over 15 years, primarily attributed to sudden cardiac arrest from extreme thermal stress.
• Families of deceased migrant workers continue to struggle for compensation and forensic investigations years after the World Cup concluded.
• The International Labour Organization has repeatedly flagged Nepal’s national labor inspection system as fundamentally broken, yet the government has failed to implement systemic reform.