BAHRAIN’S labour watchdog has taken legal action against 223 domestic workers this year who were hired by companies illegally providing cleaning services on an hourly basis.
The Labour Market Regulatory Authority (LMRA) conducted nationwide raids during which it found several firms hiring domestic staff, including undocumented workers, to be employed in households across the country – potentially putting lives at risk amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
Campaigns
“As part of our ongoing campaigns with the different ministries, action was taken against 85 businesses this year that used 223 domestic workers of different nationalities,” the watchdog said in a statement to the GDN.
“These workers were illegally employed for hourly cleaning services.”
The watchdog took legal action against the firms and the domestic workers – majority of whom were females.
“The LMRA will intensify inspection against unlicensed recruitment agencies that illegally hire domestic workers.”
The GDN previously reported that shortage of domestic workers for hourly jobs opened the doors for runaways to be hired by unscrupulous individuals and companies.
The LMRA lists 87 licensed manpower agencies authorised to employ foreign workers, including domestic staff, and details are available on the website lmra.bh.
Meanwhile, the watchdog highlighted its achievements – which include modifications to their operations to meet the requirements of clients and foreign workers.
“As part of restructuring the LMRA, special units were set up to register grievances from expatriates, and labour inspections.
“There are now four new directorates: Expat Grievances and Protection, Wages Protection, Pre-emptive Inspection and Labour Inspection.”
This is in addition to the Expat Protection Centre and Shelter in Sehla to help distressed foreign workers including alleged human trafficking victims.
“The watchdog earlier this year opened a special labour complaint office in co-operation with the Justice, Islamic Affairs and Endowments Minister to help expats file legal cases,” the LMRA said in a statement.
The office located at the government shelter in Sehla and the LMRA branch in Riffa registers all labour-related disputes, including non-payment of wages.
“The offices will also offer administrative assistance to expatriate workers in filing lawsuits online.”
The watchdog plans to cover the three governorates by opening new offices.
It further added that during the pandemic, it worked closely with employers to ensure “there was no sacking of foreign workers.”
The watchdog sent out 512,000 text messages related to Covid-19 awareness in 13 languages to expats registered in its database.
Project
It highlighted the general amnesty for illegal workers – ending on December 31 – that also helped in reducing the number of illegal workers.
In June, the LMRA launched an online jobs portal, talentportal.bh, to connect private sector employers with jobseekers including Bahrainis – especially those who lost their jobs due to the pandemic. More than 4,000 people have so far registered for the free service.
Another key LMRA project, the flexi-work permit that allows expats to sponsor themselves was vital to deal with the problem of undocumented workers.
“The flexi-work permit was revised following the cabinet decision and now people who own a Commercial Registration cannot apply.
“Workers who apply for the flexi-work permit cannot practise certain professions, and inspections have stepped up to catch the violators,” added the LMRA.
During this year, LMRA switched to Amazon Web Services (AWS) data centre which now has the largest database in the Gulf with records of more than 1.4 million expatriates and 13.5m fingerprints.
sandy@gdn.com.bh
&uuid=(email))