Expatriate Suicides in Bahrain Prompt Human Rights Evaluation of Migrant Workers

The recent surge in suicide attempts reported in this blog is not confined within Kuwait's borders across the Gulf region. Similar alarming numbers of expatriate worker suicide cases has prompted an investigation by local human rights activists on alleged migrant worker abuses in Bahrain.

Over 100 expatriate workers committed suicide over the last three years; 38 cases from this year alone and large numbers considering Bahrain's small population according to local human rights advocates.

A detailed report covering issues like work safety, living conditions, non-payment of salaries and even the kinds of food that migrant workers eat is expected to be released in September by a branch of the Bahrain Human Rights Watch Society (BHRWS) and will cover all 100 work-related fatalities in detail.

BHRWS' Secretary-General Faisal Fulad revealed that few if any safety standards are often followed on Bahrain's construction sites and there is little regard for workers' lives. He added that even if an accident does occur, it is often "brushed under the rug."

This report offers migrant rights activists a venue to speak out against all of the injustices that contribute to the overall disparaged lives that expatriate workers face while living in Bahrain, providing insight into long-term health problems that workers suffer as a result of poor diet and bad nutrition, the unjustifiably low salaries they receive, and consequently, the dilapidated living conditions available to them.

Although Fulad commented that 50% of the report has already been completed, the remaining portions of the report will still take another four months. A conference will be organized by the BHRWS to coincide with the report's release in September.

Source: TradeNews Arabia News Source

Domestic Worker Enslavement Leads to Increasing Suicide Attempts in Kuwait

To follow-up on an earlier posting from this blog on the startling increase in suicide attempts by mirgrant workers, new data documented in the Migrant-Rights.org blog has revealed that an already dire situation continues to detioriate in Kuwait, where a migrant or domestic worker attempts or fully commits suicide every other day. This trend is emerging as a consequence of the poor and abusive working conditions that Kuwait's expatriate workers face and how many are simply unable to cope.

Migrant-Rights.org reveals that between February 19 and March 25, 2010 (35 days), 17 suicide cases were reported in Kuwait's local media; usually in just two sentences under the "crime" section and without identifiable information other than the victim's nationality. Most of the workers who commit suicide are reported to be domestic workers who simply are not offered any legal protection under Kuwait's private sector labor law, and as a result, remain completely dependent on the sponsors that employ them.

It is illegal for domestic workers to leave the employing authority held by their sponsor, presenting limited options to move freely and escape enslavement.

Gulf Daily News: Surge in Suicides Sparks Action Call

This article presents some of the stark realities that migrant workers face throughout the Gulf. Many travel to countries like Bahrain in search of higher paying jobs than those that are available to them in their home countries. However, they may be coerced into an employment contract that carries a debt the worker must pay off to his/her employer (sponsor) under the "Kafala" or sponsorship system. In countries across the Gulf, it is common practice that an employer legally sponsors his employees and deducts a specific percentage of his worker's salary to repay the debt acquired from the supplied visa, processed documentation (including passports and immigration papers), as well as the airline ticket that the employer provides. However, these respective governments also allot national citizens a designated number of "free visas," intended for the hiring of domestic workers or in some cases, hundreds of employees if the citizen is a major stake-holder in manufacturing or commerce. These "free visas" bear no cost to the individual but provide a means through which the salary of sponsored workers can still be demanded in order for the worker to repay the debt incurred for using the "sponsor's" free visa. Bahrain has officially terminated this variation of the Kafala system, revoking the liberality with which regular citizens can control the movement of migrant workers.

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