A/HRC/38/41/Add.1 migrants, in particular, are subject to high levels of human rights violations in many countries, including harassment, abuse and labour rights violations. The Special Rapporteur therefore notes the need to enhance cooperation with destination States to ensure that the rights of Nepalese citizens are respected during the whole migration process. 71. The Government of Nepal has utilized bilateral instruments in the form of labour agreements and memorandums of understanding to protect its citizens in destination countries. Although it has allowed Nepalese migrants to work in 109 foreign countries, bilateral labour agreement or memorandums of understanding have been signed only with Bahrain, Japan, Jordan, Qatar, the Republic of Korea and the United Arab Emirates, while a pilot bilateral agreement has been signed with Israel. 72. Many interlocutors have praised the Government-to-Government agreement with the Republic of Korea, which was often referred to as a model example, as it facilitates migrant worker recruitment without the services of recruitment agencies and commits to providing additional skills during employment or before return. However, high recruitment costs continue to be charged to migrant workers. 73. The recently signed bilateral agreement with Jordan (2017), which provides for a standard contract for domestic workers, stipulates the number of holidays and paid sick days, and defines the minimum wage. 74. The Special Rapporteur urges Nepal to pursue the conclusion of similar agreements. They should include a uniform model contract for all workers, including domestic workers, and should ensure respect for and protection of their human rights. Labour contracts based on such a model should specify the job description, wages and labour conditions. Memorandums of understanding or bilateral agreements should be formulated in a transparent manner, with all key stakeholders involved and should be accessible to the public. In the meantime, the Nepalese authorities should cooperate closely with destination States, ensuring that the contract which is signed in Nepal is shared with the destination State for quick electronic registration, in order to prevent contract substitution. 75. The Government of Nepal, in collaboration with destination countries, should facilitate the legal remittance of earnings to benefit migrants and their families, and discourage the informal transfer of earnings. 76. The Special Rapporteur notes that initiatives from trade unions to collaborate with them should be enhanced. Such initiatives are significant, as they may increase the protection of and assistance to Nepalese migrants in destination countries. V. Migrant women 77. In 2015, the Government of Nepal endorsed guidelines regarding Nepalese domestic migrant workers. The guidelines require women migrants to have reached the age of 24 and prohibit women with a child below the age of 2 from taking up domestic work in foreign employment. They also include a provision for the Government to sign bilateral agreements and memorandums of understanding with destination countries to which Nepalese migrants go for domestic work. In early 2017, the parliamentary International Relations and Labour Committee instructed the Government to temporarily stop Nepalese female migrants from going to the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council for domestic work, as a result of their visit to those countries and observation of the conditions they saw there. 78. The Special Rapporteur observed a lot of stigma around the migration of women, loosely associated with prostitution or trafficking for sex work. As women are often employed in private households, operating outside the formal economy and excluded from labour law protection, he observes that they are left in an extremely precarious situation, heavily dependent upon their employer and without any formal protection mechanism. However, the solution to the problems faced by domestic workers cannot be to discriminate against them through the imposition of bans or other means of violating their right to leave the country. 13