Decision No. (131) of 2015. Accordingly, the NIHR would prefer to retain the text of the second
paragraph of Article (41) in the original Law, and delete the new second paragraph of Article (27) in
the draft law.
Second: Draft law on domestic workers (prepared in view of the proposed law submitted by the
House of Representatives)
1. The NIHR referred its advisory opinion on a draft law on domestic workers (prepared in view of
the proposed law submitted by the House of Representatives), consisting of (26) articles, as well
as the preamble. The articles, in its entirety, address organizing the recruitment of non-Bahraini
domestic workers, by setting forth the most important conditions that homeowners (employers)
must meet to be granted permission to recruit domestic workers, the obligations of the recruitment
offices, and the main obligations, duties, and responsibilities of both the homeowner (employer)
and the worker and the relationship between them; in addition to including the financial penalties
in the form of fines for those violating its provisions.
2. Before expressing its views on the draft law in detail, NIHR prefers to present a number of general
observations, which it regards as being consistent with the considerations of the draft law, as well
as being in harmony with international and regional instruments relating to domestic workers, as
follows:
1.1. Using a number of terminologies that are consistent with human dignity:
1.1.1. The authors of the draft law, when using the term “domestic worker”, ruling out the term “house
maid”, did well. Using this term, as viewed by the NIHR, is in conformity with the conventions
of the International Labor Organization, foremost of which is Convention No. (186) of 2011 on
Decent Work for Domestic Workers, which used the term “domestic worker”; some relevant
comparative legal systems followed the same approach.
1.1.2. The NIHR considers that, to safeguard the inherent human dignity of domestic workers, which
intrinsically refuses to be humiliated or belittled in view of the nature of domestic work, some of
the terms contained in the draft law might put the worker in a position that is looked at as being
inferior in a humiliating way.
1.1.3. A
mong those words and phrases that the NIHR would prefer to be replaced with more respectful
terms to preserve the dignity of domestic workers and, at the same time, to be in agreement with
the terms usually used by the law, is the term “the fugitive”, which is used to describe the worker
who leaves work at the homeowner’s (employer), as in Article (19) of the draft law, which states
that, “... in the case of finding the fugitive worker ...”. There is no harm in using another term
with the same meaning, such as “leaving work” and “holding”, to read, “If the worker is held
after leaving work”.
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