By BEGENA P PRADEEP
Children born to parents working for different sponsors may soon be given residence permits, officials revealed yesterday.
Labour Market Regulatory Authority (LMRA) chief executive officer Ali Radhi said he had come across cases where children born to parents working for different sponsors are denied a residence permit by law.
He said the authority was now considering changes to this law which has been in force for many years.
“We are aware of this issue through various cases that were brought to LMRA’s notice,” said the official.
“There are various factors to be considered on this issue like the salary of each parent should be above BD250 to ensure they can afford to raise the child here.
“It is certainly a matter under serious consideration of the LMRA and we will solve this in the near future,” said Mr Radhi.
He was speaking at a meeting organised by the Co-ordination Committee of Indian Associations (CCIA) at the Bahrain Keraleeya Samajam’s Diamond Jubilee Hall, Segaiya.
Community members and representatives of Indian associations and clubs raised queries and doubts about LMRA procedures.
Indian Ambassador Dr George Joseph and other officials from the embassy, LMRA and CCIA were also present.
Mr Radhi said employers or recruiting agents providing wrong information about the jobs to prospective employees was one of the main reasons for labour disputes.
To avoid this, he said expatriates should check the status of their visas on the LMRA website before leaving for Bahrain.
Another common complaint was that low-skilled workers were not able to access the Internet to check their visa status, said Mr Radhi.
Such people can send a message to the LMRA showing their CPR number through their mobile phone to 77070 (Zain) and 90168 (Batelco).
Mr Radhi said an expatriate businessman could directly approach the authority to apply for visas although it is compulsory that all clearing agents dealing with the authority should be Bahrainis.
Mr Radhi stressed that the LMRA had not taken over the role of the Labour Ministry in dealing with labour disputes and is concerned only with issuing work permits.
It was pointed out that in many cases a sponsor reports his employee, already working with him, as a runaway just to avoid paying the BD10 LMRA fees.
Mr Radhi assured that these issues would be investigated.
He also pointed out that according to the law once an expatriate’s visa is cancelled the employer cannot blacklist him or her from returning to Bahrain on another visa.
But he said LMRA would investigate if there were any conflicting cases, as pointed out by the audience.
Suggestions were also made by social workers to set up an authority to ensure that every person who comes to Bahrain for employment has a job contract as many low income workers do not even know what a contract looks like. begena@gdn.com.bh