At age 22, N. Naga Durga Bhavani left her small village in India for Bahrain, where she hoped a job as a domestic worker would help pay for her young daughter’s heart surgery. But when she arrived, after paying labor recruiters the equivalent of nearly two months’...
Bahrain
In Bahrain, the Solidarity Center supports trade union efforts to organize and educate a cadre of skilled labor educators and grassroots activists. Credit: GFBTU
In Bahrain, the Solidarity Center supports trade union efforts to organize, educate, and defend the rights of diverse workers across a wide array of jobs and industries.
The General Federation of Bahrain Trade Unions (GFBTU), one of the most active trade unions in the Gulf states, represents workers regardless of political, sectarian or national differences. The GFBTU has worked to bridge the divide between various factions and nurture the collective identity of Bahrain workers.
Since 2005, the Solidarity Center has worked with the GFBTU to help build its capacity as a representative trade union. Joint programs on gender equality, youth empowerment, migrant worker rights, eliminating gender based violence and harassment, and the protection of the freedom of association have helped build the cooperative partnership between the GFBTU and the Solidarity Center.
Bahrain: Medics, Patients Persecuted in Ongoing Repression
For sick or injured Bahrainis, going to the hospital means risking a prison term—or even death. Describing the “militarization of hospitals,” Rula Al-Saffar, president of the Bahrain Nursing Society, said patients with “head traumas, broken bones or burns” are first...
On Second Anniversary of Uprising, Bahrainis Say Crisis Is Worse
Tens of thousands of Bahrainis are in the streets today, the second anniversary of the uprising in Bahrain, to protest the government’s lack of progress in moving toward a more democratic political process. But any Bahraini student who is absent from class will be...