The Female Workforce in Bahrain: Underrepresentation, Discrimination, and Inadequate Reforms

The Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR) issues a new report on the conditions of women in Bahrain entitled “The Female Workforce in Bahrain: Underrepresentation, Discrimination, and Inadequate Reforms”, in Arabic and English languages. The report focuses on the issue of gender discrimination at workplace in addition to the discrimination against domestic workers in Bahrain.

The report aims to clarify the international legal framework for gender equality at the workplace and its compatibility with Bahraini laws. The report also presents the manifestations of gender discrimination. Moreover, the report highlights in a separate section, migrant domestic workers, the international legal framework for protecting them, and the discrimination in Bahrain.

The report concludes with the Center’s recommendations to the government of Bahrain to:

  • abolish the Kafala system and ensure employment mobility for migrant workers, including migrant domestic workers;
  • seriously investigate and prosecute crimes of forced labor;
  • extend the coverage of both labor law and social insurance law to migrant domestic workers;
  • initiate regularization programs to address irregular immigration;
  • set a decent minimum wage and extend the Wage Protection System (WPS) to domestic workers;
  • adopt clear implementation mechanisms to the legal reforms adopted in recent years, especially regarding sexual harassment and gender discrimination at work;
  • ratify all the ILO conventions on gender discrimination and women’s rights at the workplace, along with the international conventions protecting migrant workers.

To read the full report, click here The female workforce in Bahrain