December18.net, 3 July 2004
The Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR) has registered a strong protest at the lack of information given to it in the case of abused housemaid Anita Verma which came up for a court hearing this week.
“We were not informed and neither any BCHR observer nor our lawyers were present at the hearing,” BCHR Chairman Nabeel Rajab said. “This is a case that has dragged on and on and it is a pity that when it finally did come up for a hearing, neither we nor Verma were there to present their side of the case.”
Verma was rescued by the BCHR’s Migrant Workers’ Group (MWG) in October 2003 with severe facial bruising, head wounds and burns on her body. She filed a police complaint against her employer and in later interviews with Tribune, said she was under pressure to withdraw the case but would not do so. Rajab said Varma’s case was a classic example of the slow and uncertain justice process that abused domestic women workers face in Bahrain. “The BCHR has worked hard to raise awareness levels on the abuse faced by migrant women workers in Bahrain. We have raised considerable funds for a safe house for runaway women workers but are yet to receive the green signal from the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs to proceed with the completion of the projects. The delay in the court proceedings only aggravates the problem because these housemaids are not allowed to work in other places when waiting for the hearing and we end up spending our meagre resources in supporting them and sheltering them.”
December18.net, 3 July 2004
The Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR) has registered a strong protest at the lack of information given to it in the case of abused housemaid Anita Verma which came up for a court hearing this week.
“We were not informed and neither any BCHR observer nor our lawyers were present at the hearing,” BCHR Chairman Nabeel Rajab said. “This is a case that has dragged on and on and it is a pity that when it finally did come up for a hearing, neither we nor Verma were there to present their side of the case.”
Verma was rescued by the BCHR’s Migrant Workers’ Group (MWG) in October 2003 with severe facial bruising, head wounds and burns on her body. She filed a police complaint against her employer and in later interviews with Tribune, said she was under pressure to withdraw the case but would not do so. Rajab said Varma’s case was a classic example of the slow and uncertain justice process that abused domestic women workers face in Bahrain. “The BCHR has worked hard to raise awareness levels on the abuse faced by migrant women workers in Bahrain. We have raised considerable funds for a safe house for runaway women workers but are yet to receive the green signal from the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs to proceed with the completion of the projects. The delay in the court proceedings only aggravates the problem because these housemaids are not allowed to work in other places when waiting for the hearing and we end up spending our meagre resources in supporting them and sheltering them.”
Rajab called for a “fast-track” justice system especially for hearing the cases of abused expatriate workers and in particular, the cases of women workers. “In most cases the men are not as much in danger as the women because they stay together and draw support from each other’s presence. Housemaids are usually alone or two or three in a household and if they run away from abusive employees, they are vulnerable to other unscrupulous elements and it becomes necessary to keep them in a safe house. When slow court procedures are added to the situation, it becomes very difficult for us and the housemaids.
“Many employers abuse their housemaids and then take a letter from the maid in which she claims that she wants to go home and is dropping all charges against her sponsor or that she has no complaints against him/her. This amounts to getting a case dropped by pressurising the victim. Yes, these women do want to get back to their homeland. Who would want to stay in a place where they suffer abuse? But what about Bahrain having a proper process whereby, even if the housemaid drops the case, the employer faces charges on the basis of evidence such as the medical record of the abuse? Can a person be allowed to get away with abusing another human being to an inch of her life and then forcing her to drop charges?”
Rajab said such instances would create a poor international impression of Bahrain’s human rights track record, adding that Bahraini labour law protected the rights of all workers regardless of gender and nationality but that domestic workers were particularly vulnerable to abuse since they were outside the purview of the labour law.
Labourers pressing for justice. MWG takes up cases of over 50 workers suffering abuses.
Over 50 Indian labourers are pressing for justice in two cases of abuse of workers’ rights that are being currently handled by the Migrant Workers Group (MWG), an arm of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR). In the first case, which was reported by the Tribune last Thursday, the BCHR complained to the Isa Town Police Station in writing about the ill treatment meted to 22 labourers working with the Sanad-based company. According to their report, the y claimed the 22 labourers ran away after suffering months of beatings and working in unsafe workplace conditions which had resulted in one worker, Sujeeth, breaking his leg when a heavy wooden beam fell on him.
Another worker, Jojo John Talathingap, was severely beaten by the manager and the supervisor, and locked up in a store-room. This took place on May 30. On May 31, the rest of the workers, including Sujeeth, jumped the fence surrounding their squalid camp and ran away. When their complaint was placed before the Isa Town Police and the Indian Embassy, the company owner personally promised to resolve the matter speedily. However, he has sent Jojo John to India allegedly without paying his dues. At a Press conference arranged by the MWG yesterday, the workers’ spokesman, Janardhan, said they had all been abused mentally and physically. “We are tired of this torture and are living in fear that the sponsor will catch us and send us back to India without paying our dues,” Janardhan said. “All of us have paid up to BD 250 to agents in India to come here and work and when we came here, our first month’s salary was held back as ”deposit” by the sponsor. Now we still owed our April and May salaries as well and we want compensation for the terrible working and living conditions we were put through.”
Another worker, Tamilselvan, said: “There is not one of us who escaped brutal beatings and near-starvation. We were not allowed breaks to drink tea or even go to the bathroom. We appeal to authorities to see that justice is done to us.”
A spokesperson for the MWG said the Indian Embassy had taken a very serious view of the matter and was keen to see the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (MOLSA) take action. “We are extremely disappointed that despite our written complaint and a letter from the workers, the police had not done anything to investigate this case,” the MWG spokesperson said, “The case represents several gross violations, flagrant ignoring of workers’ rights, human rights and even the illegal detention and then deportation of one badly-beaten worker who was sent to Mumbai instead of his home-town in Kerala and who is stranded in Mumbai due to lack of money.”
In their letter to the Indian Embassy (copies have also been sent to Shaikh Abdulaziz bin Mubarak Al Khalifa of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and to Shaikh Ali bin Abdulrahman Al Khalifa of the Ministry of Labour), the workers allege that they have been put through “physical, mental and financial hardships since the time of joining.” The claims include lack of paper work and proper work permits; work hours that stretch over 18 hours a day without proper documentation of over-time and limitation of overtime to 300 fils per hour regardless of the time worked; monthly deductions towards tickets and visa fees and deduction of one month’s salary as deposit which are contrary to Bahrain’s labour law, and most urgent, a lack of proper safety procedures at workplaces. “We work at heights carrying heavy materials and pipes,” the letter notes. “No safety equipment is provided, not even basic helmets or proper shoes. Several of us have fallen from heights and suffered injuries. One of us, Sujeet, had his leg fractured when a heavy pipe fell on his leg. It fell at 10am and he was asked to work the whole day in that condition. Only at 8.30pm he was taken to the Salmaniya Medical Complex and had his left leg put in a plaster cast. His leg is still in plaster and even then he was asked to work.” The workers also said they lived in poor labour camp conditions, crowded six to eight persons in a room without proper bathrooms, kitchens or hygiene.
Meanwhile, in another case, 30 Indian workers at a Tubli furniture assembly factory have staged a lock-out for alleged mental pressure and lack of payment of salaries for two months. “We have been told that our case is weak since local labour law will take action only if three months’ wages are unpaid,” said spokesman Nashad. ”But we also want to draw attention to the fact that the sponsor has refused to send any of us on annual leave even after five or six years because she has let our papers lapse. Our work and residence permits are all in arrears and now she is asking us to pay the fines. Some of us are willing to pay the airfare but we simply cannot afford the fines. We are worried she will report us as runaways and that we will have to bear the brunt of the legal proceedings.”
An MWG spokesperson said the MOLSA urgently needed to instil better respect for expatriate workers’ rights in local companies, especially among the smaller firms. “These workers contribute valuable skills in the building of Bahrain and have a key role to play in Bahraini economy. They should be treated with respect and not like animals,? the spokesperson said. ?We urge the MOLSA to send inspectors to inspect work and living conditions and check office records to see that salaries are paid on time. These are as important as apprehending “free visa” workers and will automatically cut down illegal worker transactions.?
Rights workshop held
The Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR) held a workshop yesterday at the Hilton Hotel as part of efforts to consolidate the organisation while ensuring they are well on the right track of promoting human rights in the country. BCHR vice president AbdulHadi Al Khawaja said the one-day workshop is aimed at increasing members’ awareness on the programmes advocated by the BCHR. The society is also looking at significant experiences from other countries where human rights organisations have successfully played their roles in shaping democracy in their respective countries. “This programme is more focused on discussions and reviewing the objectives of the organisation. It is held to ensure we all understand the political, social and legal safeguards surrounding human rights and human rights activities in the country,” Al Khawaja said. “We are also looking at successful models and other human rights activity experiences from other countries to learn from these experiences.” Asked on a government official’s call last month to limit their activities to “non-political activities,” Al Khawaja said the issue is not really on the workshop agenda “but we expect it will come out in the discussions of the workshop participants.”
Indian woman dumped by in-laws seeks justice – Appeal for provision of temporary shelter.
Indian Imrana Begum of Hyderabad was a 12-year-old old child when she was married to her foreign-born cousin , 21 year-old Bahraini Aziz Mahdi Alfardan of Isa Town. She joined him in Bahrain a year later with a passport that added six years to her real age and was immediately pregnant with her first child, daughter Hanan who is now five. Six years later, eighteen year-old Imrana is the mother of three children – five year-old Hanan, three year-old Fardan and seven month-old Abdullah. She has been unceremoniously dumped by her husband’s family where she spent six years working as an unpaid housemaid to the family and bore their beatings and abuse. Rescued on Tuesday as she sat crying on the pavement in front of the Ministry of Justice and Islamic Affairs where her case was apparently not heard, Imrana is a desperate woman seeking justice and her right to be a mother. Her five year-old daughter has been snatched away from her by her husband’s family and they have apparently told her parents that they will persuade her husband to divorce her, keep the three children with them and send her back to Hyderabad.
“I don’t want to go back, that will mean I will never see my children again and since my husband has no job and is prone to drinking, what future do they have here” she asked, as she sat in the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights office. “I don’t want to go back to my husband’s family either. We have been thrown out of the house we lived in and had moved into my brother-in-law’s wife’s home. They make me work all day everyday and beat me and don’t give me any money for my children’s care. I actually make ends meet for myself and my children by begging outside pharmacies and mosques near my house. It was because the money I collected by begging was stolen that my husband and his brother threw me out of the house on Sunday, 16 May. They accused me of prostitution and of hiding the money. When they threw me out, a kindly Indian family took me and my two sons in but my mother-in-law (who is also my aunt) tracked me down and threatened the family. I went to the police but they turned me away and at court, my husband didn’t come and they didn?t hear my case. Where do I turn for justice next?”
Imrana’s case is but the tip of a very troubling and complex problem according to the officials of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR) and her rescuer Ghada Jamsheer, Head of the Women’s Petition Committee. “When I saw her first, she was sitting outside the courts and crying and coughing. Her babies too were crying and the three of them were dirty and sick from sitting out in the blazing afternoon sun. When I took her into my car, she asked for food and shelter,” Ghada said, “I did take her to the Indian Embassy but since she is married to a Bahraini and her children too are of Bahraini nationality (baby Abdullah has not got a passport yet), they could not take her and the children in. That’s when I contacted the BCHR who have since managed to provide some basic needs and a roof for her. But there are hundreds of Imranas out there: foreign nationals whom Bahraini men marry and abandon after having children through them. Often, these men have no jobs and can barely support themselves. These women are the second, third or fourth wives and are given lowest priority. When they are thrown out, nobody takes up their case – the police turn them away with half-hearted advise to go back to their husbands, the courts either don’t hear the cases or give custody of the children to the father who abandoned them in the first place. I believe that the embassy of the country of the woman should step in but when the children are of different nationality, they too back off. Where do they go? And these children – they are Bahraini. How can we abandon them?”
Ghada yesterday made an emotional appeal to His Majesty the King to sanction a centre for abused and abandoned wives. “Such shelters are run in the US and Europe and we desperately need them in Bahrain also. To ignore this need and close our eyes to the evidence of domestic maltreatment of women, is a shame,” she said. Her concerns were echoed by BCHR Chairman Nabeel Rajab who said Imrana’s case highlighted the urgent need for a shelter for women. “We have been working so hard to try and get the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs to co-operate with us and give us the green light for the shelter for abused housemaids and cases like Imrana’s,” he said, “Although we have the funds ready, we need their help to set up the shelter. At present, we have nowhere to turn to when women like Imrana come to us for help – these women come in a highly-strung physical and emotional state that requires continuous care. That is difficult to provide through our volunteer chain, who hold down jobs and have to fit this work into their schedules. When it involves children too, the case is more complex and we have nowhere to turn to.” He appealed to any kind-hearted person to provide temporary shelter for Imrana and her children till the BCHR can resolve the matter. “We want just a room with a bed and bathroom to shelter them. We can ensure provisions for the mother and children,” he said, “If anybody can help us, I request them to contact me on 39633399.