Labor Minister Dr. Majeed Al Alawi announced on 22 November that Bahrain would soon start implementing a new law on insurance against unemployment that is expected to benefit both local and foreign workers. The minister also clarified that expatriates in Bahrain and other Gulf countries are considered as temporary workers and not immigrants.
A group of 20 Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi detainees staged a brief hunger strike at the Hidd detention on 12 November and threatened to start another one the following week. They are protesting delays in sending them home. According to Marietta Dias, action committee head of the Migrant Workers Protection Society, the men continued to be behind bars for up to a year despite having completed their sentences. Officials from the detainees’ respective embassies said they are doing their best to help their nationals. However, delays in repatriating them are inevitable given that some of the men do not have passports or other documents, or have pending legal cases against them
The Lower Criminal Court convicted a 41-year old Bahraini woman and fined her BD30 for beating up her Filipina domestic worker and locking her up in a room at her house in Umm Al Hassam. However she got off with a suspended sentence, meaning she will not face any penalty over the next three years provided she does not commit a similar offense. The domestic worker had earlier shown the police a steel clothes hanger that her sponsor allegedly used to beat her. She bore marks of the beatings on various parts of her body.
Three Bangladeshis were arrested following last July’s raid of a home in East Riffa that is being used as a prostitution den. The Lower Criminal Court sentenced the women, aged 24 and 20, to seven months in jail for prostitution and unauthorized stay in Bahrain. Their male pimp, 30, was meted a two-year jail term. All three were ordered deported after serving their prison terms. In a separate incident, two Sri Lankan women were arrested after one of them approached a social worker for help. The women, who are currently being held at the Hoora police station until their case goes to court, claimed that two Indian men who leased the flat to them had offered them the job.
Indian domestic worker, Sarala, who is now being sheltered by the Migrant Workers’ Protection Society, had run away from her sponsor on 22 November. Sarala claims that she was being paid a salary of only BD4a month and was constantly subjected to physical abuse by her sponsor. Indian Ambassador to Bahrain Balkrishna Shetty was horrified at the woman’s story; the embassy has taken up Sarala’s case.
The Philippine Embassy warned that some unscrupulous recruitment agencies have been sending underaged domestic workers to Bahrain. Under Philippine government regulations, Filipina domestic workers have to be at least 30 years old to work abroad. However, women as young as 15 from remote villages in the Philippines are being deployed to Bahrain through the use of fake passports with falsified age data. As a result, some of the domestic workers arriving in Bahrain are inexperienced, untrained and most have never been away from home.
Bahraini recruiting agencies are predicting that the Philippine government’s proposal doubling the salary of Filipino domestic workers to $400 (BD151) is bound to result in losses of up to $250 million in annual remittances to the Philippines. According to them Bahraini sponsors are bound to turn to other nationalities with lower salary rates for domestic services. The Bahraini Labor Ministry added that the new Philippine law, which takes effect starting 15 December, would not be legally binding in Bahrain.
Sources: Sara Sami, “Pimps escape but vice raid women held," Gulf Daily News, 16 November 2006; Mohammed Aslam, “BD30 fine for beating a maid…," Gulf Daily News, 18 November 2006; Begena George, “Free us now!," Gulf Daily News, 19 November 2006; Eunice del Rosario, “Law ‘may hit remittances’," Gulf Daily News, 20 November 2006; Begena George, “BD4 salary for maid!," Gulf Daily News, 23 November 2006; “‘Beaten’ maid was paid BD4 a month," Bahrain Tribune, 23 November 2006; “Employment insurance soon," Bahrain Tribune, 23 November 2006; Mohammed Aslam, “Vice women jailed," Gulf Daily News, 25 November 2006; Eunice del Rosario, “Underage maids alert to sponsors," Gulf Daily News, 25 November 2006; Eunice del Rosario, “Minimum BD150 for maids demanded," Gulf Daily News, 27 November 2006