Clamp on open trucks urged
By MANDEEP SINGH
Published: 3rd April 2007
COMPANIES that continue to transport labourers in open trucks should face strict penalties, activists have said.
They say that there should be swift implementation of a proposed Labour Ministry rule banning such transportation methods that jeopardise their lives.
Migrant Workers Protection Society (MWPS) action committee head Marietta Dias said it was deplorable how several companies continue to still carry workers in open trucks.
She was reacting to the latest such incident of workers being involved in a road accident last Wednesday when a six-wheel open truck, transporting them to work, overturned in the Seef area.
Clamp on open trucks urged
By MANDEEP SINGH
Published: 3rd April 2007
COMPANIES that continue to transport labourers in open trucks should face strict penalties, activists have said.
They say that there should be swift implementation of a proposed Labour Ministry rule banning such transportation methods that jeopardise their lives.
Migrant Workers Protection Society (MWPS) action committee head Marietta Dias said it was deplorable how several companies continue to still carry workers in open trucks.
She was reacting to the latest such incident of workers being involved in a road accident last Wednesday when a six-wheel open truck, transporting them to work, overturned in the Seef area.
Five of the 12 labourers in the truck were injured, one of them critically, who needed emergency hospital treatment and surgery.
“How many more such incidents will happen before the authorities finally wake up,” Ms Dias told the GDN.
“We have had people killed, maimed for life and having suffered injuries of several other kinds as well,” she said.
“In most cases, the injured are never again able to go back to work, thus their families are being robbed of their only earning members.”
Ms Dias said that the MWPS has taken up the issue with the Labour Ministry, the General Federation of Bahrain Trade Unions and the embassies concerned.
“All we have received are several kinds of assurances, but those are not getting anywhere,” she claimed.
Now-dissolved Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR) vice president Nabeel Rajab said promises must be followed by implementation and safe transportation methods for migrant workers should be adopted by companies and ensured by government officials.
“Just three months after the Labour Ministry promised a ban on companies transporting labourers in the back of open trucks, we see yet another incident in which workers’ lives have been endangered by this deplorable practice,” he said.
“The practice of transporting labourers to and from worksites in the back of open trailers and trucks is a gross violation of their human rights.
“It also violates the Labour Ministry’s occupational hazards and safety code.”
Mr Rajab said while the BCHR welcomes the official measures promised to curb this practice, it would like to see the authorities implement the measures.
“It is shameful that in the past a number of workers have been killed, and injured, as a result of companies’ failure to respect workers rights and the government’s failure to ensure implementation of its own code of practices.
Mr Rajab called on companies to respect the human rights and dignity of their migrant workers.
Meanwhile, Salmaniya Medical Complex sources said that the critically-ill Bangladeshi worker, Anwar Mian, who underwent life-saving brain surgery at the hospital immediately after the recent accident, was showing signs of improvement. The sources said, however, he would still spend a few weeks in hospital.
© Gulf Daily News