GOB PLANS AMNESTY FOR ILLEGAL EXPATS IN AUGUST

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 MANAMA 000696

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/25/2017
TAGS: ECON ELAB PGOV PREL PHUM BA HUMRIT
SUBJECT: GOB PLANS AMNESTY FOR ILLEGAL EXPATS IN AUGUST


Classified By: Ambassador William T. Monroe, reasons 1.4(b) and (d).

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Summary
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1. (C) The GOB has announced plans to offer a six-month
amnesty for illegal expatriate workers beginning August 1.
Illegal workers will reportedly be permitted to legitimize
their status or return to their home country without being
subject to overstay fines. It is still unclear whether the
amnesty will be offered to anyone who is in Bahrain
illegally, or only to those who at one time had legal worker
status. Labor Market Regulatory Authority (LMRA) Acting
Chief Executive Ali Ahmed Radhi recently told PolOff that the
amnesty was an important part of the labor reform process
that also includes making use of new technology to increase
productivity and transparency for the benefit of both
employers and workers. Embassy officials from source
countries speculate that if the amnesty does not include
illegal expatriates from all visa types, there would merely
be a shift of illegal workers to fill the vacancies created
by those who left under the amnesty. Migrant worker
advocates express concerns about information reaching those
who truly need it, including household workers who have
limited access to information. They also urged that the
information be very clear about the policy so illegal workers
could make informed decisions.

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General Amnesty
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2. (U) Following the lead of fellow GCC states Saudi Arabia,
Kuwait, and UAE, Bahrain announced plans for a general
amnesty for illegal expatriate workers for a six-month period
beginning August 1. The program was initially announced June
6 by Minister of Labor and LMRA chairman Dr. Abdulmajeed Al
Alawi, yet many details of the program are still not clear.
Under the program illegal workers will reportedly be
permitted to legitimize their status or return to their home
country without being subject to overstay fines. According
to press reports, the amnesty program will be coordinated
between the LMRA and the General Directorate of Nationality,
Passports and Residence (GDNPR),Bahrain's immigration
officials. GDNPR Assistant Undersecretary for Port of Entry
and Follow Up Colonel Yousif Al Ghatam has said that the
program would primarily be for workers who arrived on work
visas who then overstayed illegally, but that the GDNPR was
working on including those who had arrived in Bahrain on
tourist visas who have stayed on in the country illegally.

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LMRA Wants a Clean Slate
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3. (C) Speaking with PolOff June 26, LMRA Acting Chief
Executive Ali Ahmed Radhi said that the amnesty was an
important part of Bahrain's plan for labor reform, supporting
the eventual overhaul of the sponsorship system for workers.
He said that a pilot program of just under 20 private
companies had been operational with the LMRA since January,
and since the beginning of May expatriate workers in the
government sector had been brought into the LMRA's system.
Radhi explained that the system had been designed to leverage
technology to provide incentives to employers to support the
new system, to streamline the process to decrease incentives
for workers to leave their employers indiscriminately, and to
strengthen the tools used to enforce new regulations. He
said that the amnesty will help to clean up the labor pool so
that, when the program goes fully live in early 2008, the
LMRA can take over the entire expatriate labor administration
process as smoothly as possible. Through the six months of
the amnesty, the LMRA will begin working with individual
companies to regularize any workers that may be out of status
or offer them the option to return to their home country.
Radhi admitted that LMRA's focus in the amnesty was to sort
out the status of previously legal workers, but said that the
GDNPR was working on the issue of amnesty for holders of
other visa types.

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View from the Embassies
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4. (C) Meeting with PolOff June 21, Bangladesh Embassy First
Secretary Shameem Al Mamun said that the program, as

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described in the press and in meetings he had attended with
government officials, would not sufficiently bring about
satisfactory results. The program should include holders of
all visa classes who are currently residing illegally and not

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just those who previously had valid work permits. Al Mamun
estimated that between five and ten thousand of the 75,000
Bangladeshi workers in Bahrain did not have legal status to
remain in the country. He wondered aloud whether the GOB
truly wanted to "clean the deck" or merely wanted to do an
"eyewash." He speculated that if the government does not
give the opportunity for the maximum number of illegal
workers to depart, there will be a new round of illegal
workers who remain in the country that will simply fill in
the positions vacated by those who took advantage of the
amnesty. Al Mamun expressed some concern at the potential
number of Bangladeshis that will want to return but will not
have sufficient money to purchase tickets to travel home,
noting that his government had not yet adequately addressed
this issue.


5. (C) In a discussion with PolOff July 20, Pakistan Embassy
Community Welfare Officer Habib Gilani said that the Embassy
had received a letter from Ministry of Labor Undersecretary
Shaikh Abdulrahman Al Khalifa stating that the Ministry would
host a meeting with officials from the embassies of
labor-sending countries in the near future to discuss the
amnesty. He said that it was his understanding that only
those with previous valid work permits would be able to avail
themselves of the amnesty but that this was inadequate and
would not solve the problem of illegal workers. Gilani
expected that the Embassy could see up to 2,000 of the
approximately 45,000 Pakistanis in Bahrain come forward to
make use of the amnesty. He said a common story is that
manual laborers begin working in Bahrain legally, most often
working long hours for minimal pay, but then leave their
employers secretly to take up work elsewhere that either pays
more money or requires fewer hours of work, so they can take
a second job to augment their income.

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Concerns About Implementation
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6. (U) Human rights activists have encouraged the government
to make every effort to spread the word about the upcoming
amnesty, so that the word will reach those who need to take
advantage of it most. The government should distribute
information printed in several languages to reach those who
do not understand English or Arabic. Activists also
suggested that social clubs take the initiative to inform
their communities about the procedures once they have been
publicized. They pointed out that many household workers
have limited exposure to the outside and limited access to
information, so awareness campaigns should endeavor to reach
workers in their homes in addition to their places of work.
Activists have also called attention to the problem of
employers who exploit workers and who may not want their
workers to participate in the amnesty, saying that government
authorities need to make sure these employers comply with the
law.


7. (C) Meeting with PolOff June 24, Migrant Worker
Protection Society officials Marietta Dias and Mehru Vesuvala
expressed concern that embassies would not be prepared to
deal with the volume of workers who respond to the offer of
amnesty. They said they were unaware of preparations by any
embassy to augment their staffing to assist with the workers,
including the Indian Embassy, which provides services to the
over 250,000 workers it claims are in Bahrain. Dias said
that it was very important that the government's policy be
crystal clear so that workers considering the amnesty can
make an informed decision. She said it was not only critical
that people who entered Bahrain on tourist visas and
overstayed be included in the amnesty, but also that the
practice of granting influential individuals the authority to
"invite" large numbers of visitors on tourist visas had to
stop. She explained that some people granted this authority
were "selling" tourist visas to visitors, who would then go
into the labor market to search for a job. Vesuvala
anticipated that among amnesty respondents will be workers
who are legal but unhappy with their work; they will try to
use the amnesty to break their contracts to return home,
thereby increasing the numbers even further.

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Comment
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8. (C) The benefit of Bahrain's amnesty program will be
proportional to how comprehensive it is. If in the end it is
too focused and only seeks to resolve the status of
previously legal workers, the government will not have
seriously faced the problem of illegal workers and will only
have shaken up the labor force a bit. In the spirit of its
desire to do more to combat trafficking, the GOB should

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implement the program as broadly and inclusively as possible
to provide an opportunity to those who are in marginal
situations and vulnerable to being trafficked to return to
their countries without the fear of fines or punishment.

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