Bahrain has postponed the implementation of a ban on the dangerous practice of transporting construction workers to and from work in open trucks after protests from private companies. The ban was meant to come into effect on January 1st 2009, but was shouted down by businessmen who claimed that the cost of transporting workers in [...]
Migration and Domestic Helpers is a great source for information and analysis of issues concerning migrant rights and domestic workers. The latest post is a great follow up to our previous one:
Image from Middle East Report, No. 211 “Keeping Migrant Workers in Check: The Kafala System in the Gulf”
According to Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) data, [...]
Arab News gives us a reason to be optimistic in their most recent coverage of domestic worker rights in the country:
MANAMA: The General Federation of Bahrain Trade Unions (GFBTU) has formed a special committee to work on the rights of domestic workers, including a compulsory weekly day off and health insurance, according to Suad Mubarak, [...]
A joint agreement between Bahrain and India gives us hope about the status of Indian workers and housemaids in the country. According to Gulf Daily News, the leading English daily in Bahrain:
A COMPREHENSIVE labour agreement that aims to protect the welfare of Indian workers and housemaids is to be signed between Bahrain and India [...]
We have written previously about the poor working conditions and lack of safety for migrant construction workers in the Gulf. It was such working conditions that unfortunately led to the death of 3 workers in Bahrain: Anil Kumar (India), Badala Raju (India), and Kamal Amin Sharif (Bangladesh).
The following scan from Gulf Daily News provides [...]
According to Gulf Daily News, Bahrain’s leading English daily:
The 21-year-old Bahraini brutally assaulted and strangled his Ethiopian housemaid when she refused to strip for him.
[..]
The defendant is accused of murdering the 28-year-old Ethiopian woman in his bedroom because she refused to take off her clothes on February 29.
He allegedly locked the maid inside his room [...]
Ami Tursiya Takiyat, a 24 year old Indonesian housemaid in Bahrain, was stabbed to death by a Bahraini national.
There is a lot of things to say about this, but I remain quite speechless. This crime made the front page of Gulf Daily News, Bahrain’s leading English daily, and rightly so, as it deserves all the [...]
Sandeep Singh Grewal
Manama, Bahrain-Workers who have filed cases against their employers are legally entitled to stay and work in the country, says a local human rights group.
The Bahrain Human Rights Society is now calling on all the lawyers in the country to open files of all expatriate workers whose employers have filed cases against them [...]
In July 2006, a blaze at a labour camp in Gudaibiya left 16 Indian workers dead. The workers were made to live in a squalid, overcrowded camp, with outrageously poor facilities. Not only were appropriate safety measures ignored, but the windows were sealed shut, limiting the workers’ means of escape.
Angered, the 200 surviving workers took [...]
Sandeep Singh Grewal - AHN Middle East Correspondent
Manama, Bahrain (AHN) - Being a maid here equals money troubles and misery. That sums up what many domestic workers go through after they leave their countries to earn a better living for their families, according to a union official.
Bahrain, like many other Gulf Cooperation Council states, is [...]