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OO RUEHDE RUEHDIR
DE RUEHMK #0696/01 2041402
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
O 231402Z JUL 07
FM AMEMBASSY MANAMA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 7068
INFO RUEHZM/GULF COOPERATION COUNCIL COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RHBVAKS/COMUSNAVCENT  PRIORITY
RHMFISS/HQ USCENTCOM MACDILL AFB FL PRIORITY

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 
------------------------ 
 
¶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 
----------------------- 
 
¶4.  (C) Meeting with PolOff June 21, Bangladesh Embassy First 
Secretary Shameem Al Mamun said that the program, as 
 
SIPDIS 
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 
 
MANAMA 00000696  002 OF 003 
 
 
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 
----------------------------- 
 
¶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 
 
MANAMA 00000696  003 OF 003 
 
 
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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Visit Embassy Manama's Classified Website: 
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/nea/manama/ 
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MONROE