Article by Suad Hamada (Women Gateway)

 The government weak response to the usage of worshiping places by conservative scholars to fight women progress in politics was criticised by Human Rights Annual Report of 2006.

Written with neutrality and intensive investigation by the Bahrain Human Rights Society (BHRS), highlights that lectures held at mosques by conservative MPs and scholars was one of the main reasons of the failure of eleven female election candidates in 2006 election.

The report also calls for equal treatment of women and men when it comes to the nationality law, especially giving females the rights to pass their Bahraini citizenship to their husbands and children similar to local males.  It also calls for the drafting of legislations forcing the state to finance human rights, women and children societies.

The report appreciates Bahrain’s keenness to empower women and requests to reinforce its effort by joining the optional protocol of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the country joined in 2002.

The report also highlights some positive signs of women empowerment in 2006 such as the recruitment of the first female judge Mona Al Kuwari in the Gulf region, but the report calls to appoint more women in important positions in the judiciary system as Al Kuwari is assigned to handle juvenile cases only.

When it comes to empowering women in the decision making, the report highlights that there are less women as ministers than men and they are hardly appointed in managerial government posts such as undersecretaries.

Besides women affairs, the report calls for constitutional amendments in Bahrain to associate citizens in the ruling of the Kingdom. It supports the need for more powers for the parliament to safeguard the interests of citizens, especially in areas related to questioning of ministers and the activation of no confidence vote.

The report highlights that without constitutional amendments the parliamentary supervision power over the government would remain limited.

The report also calls for the closing of the torture cases occurred in the nineties through helping and rehabilitating the victims and their families and punished torturers. It stresses the formation of an autonomous National Human Rights Panel to reinforce human rights practices in Bahrain.
  
The ratification of new press law that reinforce freedom of the press and expression is recommended by the report to protect the rights of journalists, especially spare them from jail sentences that are part of the punishments of the present law.