Scores of Foreign Workers Prevented from Leaving, Working to Repay Debts

JANUARY 16, 2012

(New York) – Bahraini authorities should immediately resolve the predicament of foreign residents prevented from leaving the country due to debts, or from working to repay those debts, Human Rights Watch said today. Authorities have prohibited dozens of expatriate workers from leaving Bahrain for debt-related reasons while also refusing to renew their residency and work permits, making it impossible for them to earn money to repay the debts and in some cases forcing them into penury.

June 29th, 2011
Published on www.migrant-rights.org

During the days of protests in Bahrain, pro-regime media outlets covered extensively the xenophobic attacks attributed to opposition elements against migrant workers in Bahrain. Pro-regime outlets used the attacks on south-Asian workers in an attempt to present the oppressed protesters as the violent oppressors instead of the regime (which killed 31 protesters to date, while jailing and torturing thousands more). The hypocrisy of using the attacks on migrants for political gain is all the more evident considering Bahrain’s poor track-record when it comes to migrant rights, which has only worsened since the February protests. While criticizing the opposition for the attacks on migrants, in recent weeks the Bahraini regime had issued several anti-migrant resolutions.

Published on guardian.co.uk

by Fahad Desmukh
18 June 2011

Since the Bahraini regime launched its crackdown on protesters in March, the government and its apologists have tried to justify state brutality by pointing to violence inflicted upon expatriate labourers – supposedly at the hands of protesters.

24 December 2010

The Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR) calls on the local and international community to give special attention to the plight of female migrant domestic workers in the Kingdom of Bahrain. To a great extent, this sector of Bahraini society has been ignored and excluded from the discourse on women's and migrants’ rights in Bahrain. Women and children around the globe are the most vulnerable section of society to the effects of economic, political and social ills; for migrant women, the conditions are even worse. According to the ILO, domestic work is the "single most important category of employment among women migrants to the Gulf as well as to Lebanon and Jordan."

By ANIQA HAIDER , Posted on » Wednesday, August 04, 2010

ACTIVISTS have come to the aid of a battered Indian housemaid, who claims she was beaten by her employer's wife and forced to sleep outside on the terrace.

Salma Begum fled her boss's home covered in bruises yesterday, less than two months after she arrived in Bahrain.

The 32-year-old widow claims she has not been paid since she arrived on June 17.

28 July 2010

In act of the social responsibility that the Bahrain Center for Human Rights bears towards fighting human rights violations, and as a means of encouraging the activists, human rights defenders and website owners to monitor the violations of human rights and document them through photos and publish them by using the latest technologies, the BCHR had granted Mrs Rosie Tavares from the Migrant Workers Protection Society, for taking several photos that show the violations which the members of the migrant workers are facing, and especially the domestic workers. The prize is a modern style Canon Camera.

BAHRAIN (Tier 2)

Bahrain is a destination country for men and women subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically forced labor and forced prostitution. Men and women from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Ethiopia, and Eritrea migrate voluntarily to Bahrain to work as domestic workers or as unskilled laborers in the construction and service industries. Some, however, face conditions of forced labor after arriving in Bahrain

BANGLADESHI SENTENCED TO DEATH IN BAHRAIN
A 26-year-old Bangladeshi man, Russell Mezan, was sentenced to death by the High Criminal Court of Bahrain on 23 March after being convicted of murdering a Kuwaiti man. Russell Mezan’s lawyer says he has appealed against the sentence.

The BCHR in the Human Rights Council Geneva

11-03-2010
On the sidelines of the meetings of the Human Rights Council that are currently being held in Geneva, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights participated in two symposiums at the United Nations. One of them addressed the continuous violations, harassments, and smear campaigns which the defenders of human rights were facing in the world. Bahrain and the Republic of Colombia were the examples that were mentioned.

Race, Poverty, and Justice
Nabeel Rajab- Bahrain Center for Human Right & CARAM Asia
World Congress against the Death Penalty, Geneva – 24 February, 2010
Introduction