NIHR’s Committee on General Rights and Freedoms convenes its 18th Teleconference Meeting
13 Sep 2020
The National Institution for Human Rights (NIHR)’s Committee on General Rights and Freedoms convened its 18th teleconference meeting under the chairpersonship of
Dr. Bader Mohamed Adel and membership of Mr. Ahmed Mahdi Alhaddad and
Mrs. Wedad Radhi Almoosawi, where the Committee discussed all its previous resolutions and recommendations and the actions taken thereupon, in addition to the opinion of the NIHR Secretariat-General on increasing the age where child labor is permitted, which is contained in Chapter 4 of the Law no. (36) of 2012 promulgating the Labor Law in the private sector. It ended up with the recommendation to increase the age of child labor to be 18 years instead of 15 years, in line with the age stated in the Bahraini Child Law and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, as well as the provision of Article (1) of the International Convention no. (138) of 1973 on the minimum employment age, which was acceded by the Kingdom of Bahrain in 2012 by virtue of the Law no. (1).
The Committee also discussed the proposal of the round table event that the NIHR intends to hold remotely this month on the rights of expatriate workers in light of the Coronavirus (Covid-19), which aims to highlight a number of issues related to expatriate workers in general and their rights, especially in light of the Coronavirus pandemic. The Committee stressed the importance of accelerating the coordination to hold an event that simulates the current situation and addresses distance education in light of the precautionary and preventive measures taken by the relevant authorities in the State to limit the spread of the Coronavirus (Covid-19).
The Committee concluded its meeting by reviewing the course of a number of visits conducted by the NIHR to a number of correction and rehabilitation centres during Ashura season, with a view to ensuring the extent to which the inmates of those centres practice their rights related to religious rites, as well as the visit that was conducted to the accommodation of the workers at the Arab Shipbuilding and Repair Yard Company (ASRY) to determine the accessibility of human rights therein.