Starting next year, Bahrain will join other Gulf States in extending its summer midday work ban to three months, following a decision by the Bahraini Cabinet yesterday. The ban will now run from June 15 to September 15, replacing the previous two-month period. Under the current law (Ministerial Order No. 3 of 2013), the ban hours are from 12 pm to 4 pm.

This extension comes after years of advocacy by civil societies, trade unions, and physicians who pushed for the ban to cover the hotter months of June and September. This summer, the Migrant Workers Protection Society launched the #ExtendTheShade campaign to advocate for this change.

Authorities had previously resisted extending the ban due to “its implications for the private sector”. The new decision comes amid an economic downturn, with fewer construction projects than in previous decades.

Despite the positive step, the ban remains tied to arbitrary calendar dates and hours, rather than real-time temperatures. Bahrain’s summer temperatures remain dangerously high outside the ban’s designated hours. Migrant-Rights.org previously reported that extreme temperatures and high humidity levels outside the current ban period continued to expose workers to dangerous heat stress.

While the government’s summer ban campaigns focus primarily on construction workers, they turn a blind eye to the thousands of other workers who continue to toil outdoors in the heat, including security workers, delivery drivers, and petrol station attendants. Earlier in the summer, labour unions in Bahrain called for these workers to be included in the ban, pointing to similar measures in other Gulf states.

For more on Bahrain’s summer work ban, read here.