Gulf Daily News – 27 September 2005
THE Bahrain Centre for Human Rights has issued a number of recommendations addressing this issue. According to the report, Bahraini authorities, the embassies of countries exporting migrant workers to Bahrain and civil society organisations all have roles to play to curtail this issue.
The Bahraini authorities should:
- Ratify the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, which include their right to live, to have fair judicial measures, receive fair trials, and their right to freedom of expression through legislation, and the reformation of existing legislation in order for them to be consistent with international standards.
Gulf Daily News – 27 September 2005
THE Bahrain Centre for Human Rights has issued a number of recommendations addressing this issue. According to the report, Bahraini authorities, the embassies of countries exporting migrant workers to Bahrain and civil society organisations all have roles to play to curtail this issue.
The Bahraini authorities should:
- Ratify the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, which include their right to live, to have fair judicial measures, receive fair trials, and their right to freedom of expression through legislation, and the reformation of existing legislation in order for them to be consistent with international standards.
- Implement the 2005 recommendations of the UN Committee against Torture and the UN committee on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination, specially the parts which refer to the Migrant Workers.
- Sponsors, recruitment agents and companies should be prohibited from holding passports against the wish of the holders, and to emphasise on the punishment of whoever violates the latter. The Labour Ministry, the Directorate of Immigration and Passports, and police stations should take measures to stop violations and not wait until the cases are transferred to court.
- Cease bringing migrant workers from countries without embassies or labour offices in Bahrain, including Sri Lanka, Indonesia and some African countries. And this should hold until these countries open offices to serve their citizens.
- Provide shelter to victims of violence and abuse, mainly women who have no other place to resort to or source of income to live on.
- Establish laws and regulations that protect the sponsor, so that sponsors do not need to hold the passport, providing that these laws and regulations do not restrict the freedoms of the migrant workers to move and their right to keep their travel documents.
The embassies of exporting countries should:
- Take up their responsibility to protect their citizens and provide legal assistance.
- Prior to their travelling to their destination country, migrant workers, specially women, should be informed about working conditions and their rights and duties according to the domestic law, and international standards.
- Provide shelter for their citizens, who suffer from circumstances beyond their will and to facilitate their return back to their countries.
- Hold accountable fellow citizens who work with rented commercial registration or with local recruiting agents or as sponsors, who are found to violate the rights of migrant workers.
Civil society institutions in the sending and receiving countries should:
- Consider the rights of migrant workers as part of human rights and the rights of national workers which can not be separated. Local trade unions, as well as rights and women societies and organisations should take the responsibility to equally defend these workers.
- Governmental and Non-governmental Organisations specialising in Human Rights, Labour Rights and Migrant Worker Rights, should be responsible for defending the rights of these individuals.