A/HRC/38/41/Add.1 6. Recipients of labour permits over the period from 2008/09 to 2014/15 came from every district in the country, with the top 10 being Dhanusa, Jhapa, Mahottari, Morang, Siraha, Nawalparasi, Sunsari, Saptari, Rupandehi and Sarlahi. 5 In Provinces 6 and 7, migrants leave temporarily, seasonally or permanently to go to India. Foreign employment has also created an imbalance in the local economy, so that migrants, mainly from India, go to the Terai belt in the south of the country, to attend to shortages in the labour supply. 7. Women’s participation in foreign employment has increased considerably in the past decade. The last census (2011) shows that a total of 1,921,494 persons were registered as absent population, which may include internal migration, and that of them 87.6 per cent were men and 12.4 per cent were women. 6 Only 4.3 per cent of labour permits were issued to women in 2014/15, as bans and restrictions led to increased migration of women to and through India.7 8. Nepal has made significant progress in ensuring protection of the rights of its citizens who migrate for foreign employment, including by amending its legislation and developing corresponding policy measures. While the Special Rapporteur recognizes that there is an increased awareness on the part of the State of the need to address these issues in a comprehensive manner, including through enhanced coordination between different ministries, he notes that important gaps in protection continue to exist in law and challenges remain in enforcement, implementation and monitoring. III. Normative and institutional framework for the protection of the human rights of migrants A. International legal framework 9. Nepal is a party to all the core human rights treaties except the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrants Workers and Members of Their Families; the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance; the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. 10. Nepal has ratified seven out of the eight International Labour Organization (ILO) fundamental conventions. However, it has not ratified the Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, 1948 (No. 87), the Migration for Employment Convention (revised), 1949 (No. 97), the Migrant Workers (Supplementary Provisions) Convention, 1975 (No. 143), the Private Employment Agencies Convention, 1997 (No. 181) or the Domestic Workers Convention, 2011 (No. 189). 11. Nepal has not ratified the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, or the Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air, both supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime; neither has it ratified the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol, the Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons or the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. B. Regional consultative processes 12. Nepal is a member of the Colombo Process, a regional consultative process on the management of overseas employment and contractual labour for countries of origin in Asia. It is also a member of the Abu Dhabi Dialogue. The secretariat of the South Asian 5 6 7 4 See Ministry of Labour and Employment, “Labour migration for employment. A status report for Nepal: 2014/2015”. See Government of Nepal, National Population and Housing Census 2011. See Ministry of Labour and Employment, “Labour migration for employment”.