New plan to address issues faced by maids, employers

The new system introduced by the Labour Market Regulatory Authority (LMRA) for the recruitment of domestic workers is aimed at the welfare of both the workers and their employers, it emerged. According to LMRA, the system will be implemented this month itself. Under the new system, citizens and residents wishing to issue permits to domestic workers can go to the registered local labour agencies approved by the LMRA to submit the application electronically. These applications will be passed to both eGovernment Authority and Nationality, Passport and Residence Affairs (NPRA) to issue the worker identification number and visa respectively.

Speaking to Tribune, Ali Al Kooheji, Vice-President of Operations at LMRA, said: “As per the directions of the Government of Bahrain, to ease the procedures for Bahrain nationals and residents, the LMRA has initiated a number of features and facilities to the employers of domestic employees through the new domestic work permit issuance system. “Under the new system, employers can go to a recruitment agency approved by the LMRA, choose the worker and submit the application electronically.”

“The most prominent features of this new system are that it is time and effort saving for the employer where the domestic work permit issuance will be regulated through one electronic transaction which will help reduce the number of visits to government offices by more than 50 per cent. “The new system will allow employers to issue domestic work permits for 12 months or 24 months. In addition to allowing employers to renew domestic work permits and residency for 6,12 or 24 months, which gives more flexibility to families regarding the period of time in which they need the domestic workers.”

The new system will help limit the entrance of unfit expatriates to the Kingdom through pre-employment medical check-ups at the country of origin through any of the GCC approved medical centres, which will help maintain a healthy environment for the nationals and residents of the Kingdom. “The new system will issue a CPR (national identity number) prior to the entrance to the Kingdom, which will provide faster and direct access to facilities that need the presence of identification in places like banks, hospital, telecom services,” Mr Al Kooheji said. The system is built with features to highly protect the domestic workers where it will be mandatory for all employers to use the tripartite domestic contract, which is a contract that regulates the relationship between the agency, the employer and the domestic worker.

“Under the new contract, employers seeking to hire a domestic worker must declare, among other things, the nature of the job, work and rest hours and weekly days off. In addition to mandating a commitment to employment and wage contract for those domestic employees, who are employed through direct employment arrangements such as transfer from an employer to another inside the Kingdom where a recruitment office is not a part of the employment process. Bahrain is set to announce a new system for expat salary protection, which will require every firm to transfer all expatriate salaries through local banks. “This will ensure that the payment of salaries fulfils contractual obligations and can be tracked.”

“Since the last quarter of 2014, the authority has worked on creating a database for domestic workers, in order to optimise these services, the LMRA is adding new facilities for the beneficiaries. The authority will inaugurate a new system to issue permits this March. These developmental steps are in line with the Government Action Plan to use electronic operations to streamline procedures.” Meanwhile, the LMRA has warned of dealing with unlicensed agencies or mediators, the list of accredited agencies can be found on LMRA’s website www. lmra.bh or by calling the authority’s contact centre on 17506055.