October 2004

28/10/2004
Will MPs' generosity really benefit the needy?
Vol XXVII NO. 222 Thursday 28 October 2004

By AMIRA AL HUSSAINI

Life is finally smiling and the lives of thousands of 'poor' people may now change drastically, thanks to the generosity of Bahrain's MPs.

Because of the huge surge in Bahrain's income due to the soaring oil price ($55 a barrel and rising), Parliament has passed a proposal to give a one-off BD500 to any Bahraini breadwinner earning less than BD1,000 a month.

One MP suggested that the payment should be BD1,000, but his ingenious idea fell on deaf ears because BD500 is a reasonable enough gift, as long as it is not coming out of the MPs' pockets and will not affect their salaries and incentives, which certainly have made them a cut above the rest.

Their proposal is as follows: "The money will go to the breadwinner of 'needy' families, whose monthly income is less than BD1,000 a month. This excludes ministers and Shura and parliament members."

I feel uneasy on three points...

1. Who is the breadwinner? Is it every man with a marriage certificate? Or is it every citizen within a certain age group? Does it cover widowed and divorced women?

What about families which have been deserted by their breadwinners (men) and who have to scrape the floor to make ends meet? How do those families without a legal status and a family head benefit from all those windfalls, generated by one generous gesture after another?

How will they profit from this generosity if it gets the Cabinet green light? One would think, if parliamentarians really wanted to help poor people, they would suggest giving the aid to families without a breadwinner.

2. What is the criteria being used to define needy people? Needy at BD1,000 a month? This beats the former Bahrain Human Rights Centre's description, which defined the poverty line as being below BD309 which I thought was a bit exaggerated! Maybe I am disillusioned, but a monthly salary of BD1,000 is a comfortable salary by Bahrain's standards, unless standards in Bahrain have gone up while I was asleep.

3. Why not include ministers and Shura and parliament members in the scheme? They are citizens too and have certainly benefited from many perks and gestures in the past.

Will BD500 make a difference to them? Come to think of it, how much of a difference would BD500 make to the lives of poor people?

I am not being ungrateful but what is a one-off payment of BD500?

Will it help get a gifted but needy student through university?

Will it help renovate that old crumbling house?

Will it pay off debts which have accumulated over the years?

Will it be used to foot the medical costs of a bedridden member of the family?

I know I have more questions than answers.

I hope voters too will ask themselves why MPs are so determined to get their scheme through at the beginning of the third year of their four-year term.



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25/10/2004
Do men regard family law as threat to their freedom?
Vol XXVII NO. 219 Monday 25 October 2004

By AMIRA AL HUSSAINI

Why am I not surprised at all that the majority of those against having a written family law to protect the rights of women and children are men?

According to a study commissioned by the Supreme Council for Women and conducted by the Bahrain Centre for Studies and Research, 64.38 per cent of those who turned down the proposal to have a family law were men.

The sticky question here is: WHY?

Why does the looming family law seem to be a threat to them? Is it because it may, in a way, curtail the unlimited freedom they have on the fate of children and women who fall under their wing? Would it perhaps give those women and children rights and privileges, which will be protected by law and give law-makers the right to intervene and make decisions in 'family affairs'.

Would it maybe, as the study suggests, curb some of the malpractices against women and children, practised mostly by men who feel that their only way of proving their manhood is through terrorising their helpless families?

I am also equally surprised that there were women against the proposal to draft the law. Once again, why? Why are women their own enemies?

I don't see a single reason why women would object to having a law, any law, which may draw a line under what they are entitled to, what their rights are and what their duties and obligations should be.

Over the centuries, I feel women have struggled mostly because of man-made laws which are totally devoid of the message of equality and humanity found in Divine Law. Men made their own rules and interpreted religious doctrines to suit their own selfish needs. They have continued to oppress women and in turn their entire families, even in this modern day and age.

There should be a law to define relations within the family for each and every single person, man or woman, to know what is expected of them and what they would get in return.

It is a shame that the time has come for everything to be set in black and white, even within a family. One would think people get married and start families for peace, stability and tranquillity, for achieving a sense of fulfilment and bringing unlimited joy to their own lives and that of people around them and not the contrary.



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20/10/2004
Housemaids are poorly paid superwomen...
Vol XXVII NO. 214 Wednesday 20 October 2004

By AMIRA AL HUSSAINI


For BD40 a month, a housemaid is expected to toil 24 hours a day, seven days a week. She should clean the house, cook the food, wash the clothes, clean the garden (if there is a garden in the house) and in some cases even wash the cars (almost every house has a car).

If this is not enough, she is also required to look after the children and do her madam's pedicure!

In short, she is fully responsible for running the house and ensuring that all its occupants have everything they desire - from breakfast to reading bedtime stories for the children before they go to sleep.

In return, she should not get tired or sick or become slow and sloppy in her work.

She should also not complain or nag, even if she is a woman. After all, she was brought from her country to serve and as a servant, she should not talk back and demand any rights. Any resistance to law, order and servitude as put forward by the madam and sometimes even the boss, is punishable severely.

You should remember here that for every house there are different rules and regulations. There isn't a labour law to cover domestic workers, because like women, they fall under the family's wing and as such are immune from the law or rather, the law has no power over them. No one is allowed to interfere in the way a house is run - not even the law.

Very often we hear horror stories about how housemaids are being treated like animals, shackled to slavery and misery for the duration of their stay in the region.

This may not be the case for all the two million Asian maids working in the GCC without any legal protection, stipulated by a labour law, bound by a contract and governed by a set job definition. Housemaids here seem to be a jack of all trades, robotic machines who are supposed to work around the clock with no time off for changing oil and maintenance.

A study reviewed last week by GCC labour and social affairs ministers in Kuwait shows that housemaids are subjected to many forms of maltreatment, including sexual abuse and even rape, non-payment of salaries, being forced to do 'hard' work and working long hours and at the weekend.

Not many local families approve of giving their maids days off. The argument is that they are women and women could get up to mischief if left alone. The other issue raised by many madams is: if a mother can get a day off, then a housemaid could. Very funny! It is no wonder then that many a time, children develop a closer bond with their housemaid than their mothers. Mothers can leave the home and live their lives - not the housemaids.



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17/10/2004
When fast leads to farce...
Vol XXVII NO. 211 Sunday 17 October 2004

BY AMIRA AL HUSSAINI

IT can't get any better than this? Or can it? The National Assembly opened to much fanfare last week with renewed promises for a better deal for Bahrainis - women, workers, the downtrodden, the whole lot.

But our honourable MPs sure know how to take cues and work hand in hand to create a better Bahrain for the people who freely elected them.

In fact, they are already working on marvellous proposals to make the lives of their fellow citizens better.

With Ramadan here, people take it for granted that life in the Arab World comes to a standstill.

Conferences, exhibitions, meetings, seminars, business trips and all the rest of the activities, like going to work, which ensure that there is Iftar on our tables, come to a complete full-stop. You can't work and fast at the same time. It is that time of the year when many people take their annual holidays because they are in no mood to go to work while they are fasting.

Forget about the real reasons for Ramadan (that's only in textbooks and mosque sermons). Without being specific whether it implies to many, most or all Bahrainis, it seems to be the time to eat (while you are awake) and sleep (while you are fasting) and meet family for Iftar and friends for Ghabgha parties, which continue until the early hours of the morning.

Thanks to the MPs latest suggestion, the Holy Month is now expected to get even better. In their first session ever for this bright new term, they have come up with a proposal which will enable us all to scale greater heights and save humanity and the Muslim world.

They now want to 'decrease' working hours in the government sector from six to five hours during the Holy Month. I really don't know whether to cry or laugh at this. The reasoning behind this proposal: According to parliament second vice-chairman Shaikh Adel Al Maawda it was aimed at helping working women meet their family needs during Ramadan.

But then those proposing the idea saw that it wasn't fair to discriminate between men and women and decided that both men and women should be treated equally and thereby should both "work" fewer hours during Ramadan. Am I really reading, writing and understanding this right? Do you see light at the end of the tunnel the way I am seeing it? Men should be treated equally to women, cries the MP. After all, he says, they "decided to include everyone to be fair, because fasting is for everyone."

Yes, I cannot agree more. Fasting is for everyone but nowhere in the Holy Book does it say that He Who Fasts Shall Not Work.

To add insult to injury, the MPs drafting the proposal claim that reducing working hours would not affect productivity. Oh, PLEASE!

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