On the occasion of World Children’s Day, 20 November, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR) issued a report on the conditions of children in Bahrain and the violations committed against them. The report is titled “Childhood Abused in Bahrain: Children of Bahrain between Imprisonment and Revocation of Nationality” in Arabic and English languages. The report focuses on three headings: “Why Bahraini children are deprived of citizenship” and “How the law treats stateless children” in addition to “the legal effects of depriving children of nationality.”
The report aims to demonstrate the incompatibility of Bahraini laws and legislations with international treaties, charters, and agreements. It reviews articles from international laws that guarantee children’s rights in comparison with the Bahraini Nationality Law on Children. The report presents the violations committed in prisons against children, their arrest, and their trial under illegal conditions, and in this context, it presents cases of torture in prisons.
The report concluded with recommendations to the international community and the Bahraini government to:
– Immediately release all detained children;
– Stop all violations against children in Bahrain;
– Enacting clear legislation to protect children and their rights;
– The application of the terms of the conventions guaranteeing the right of individuals to nationalities, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Declaration on the Rights of the Child, and other conventions;
– Enacting the Bahraini Nationality Act (2014), that guarantees the right of the individual in all matters relating to nationalities;
– Stop making decisions and provisions not stipulated in the Penal Code;
– Granting citizenship to every Bahraini child who has been stripped of his nationality and compensated for every right he was deprived of when he was stateless and;
– Amend the law to allow the Bahraini mother to transfer her nationality to her child.