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English
Bahrain
Our Partner
| Women's Status at a Glance |
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Country OverviewGovernment type: Constitutional monarchy Education and HealthAdult literacy rate Political ParticipationYear women received |
Bahrain Women Association (BWA) is a non profit organization dedicated to empowering women to actively participate in public life and to maximize their contribution to Bahrain’s democratic transition. Through activities including training workshops and seminars, radio and television programs, advocacy campaigns and networking, BWA promotes active citizen participation among women. Officially established in 2001, the vision of BWA is "to empower leaders for the human development era."
BWA's Mission:
- To empower women to assume a leading role in human development.
- To provide the necessary awareness, counseling and support to society members with a view towards ending environmental and social violence, abuse, and neglect.
- To effectively collaborate with like minded organizations, associations, and bodies on both national and international levels.
Key Programs
- A Woman's Launch
- Human Development
- Be Free Center
- Environmental Citizenship
- Development Tributaries
Stories and Reports
Young Women as "Emerging Leaders"
In cooperation with our partner organization in Bahrain, WLP completed the full first draft of Emerging Leaders, a manual for adolescent girls between the ages of twelve and seventeen. The manual will serve as the primary curriculum for YWLP, and is intended for use during leadership training workshops. The manual's fun and interactive sessions enable adolescents to develop greater self confidence, learn how to communicate more effectively, build leadership skills, and identify areas where they can be leaders in their own communities.
( categories:
Bahrain | Young Women's Learning Partnership (YWLP) )
Interview with Wajeeha Al Baharna, President of Bahrain Women's Society, on the Nationality Campaign in Bahrain
Interview with Wajeeha Al Baharna, President of the Bahrain Women's Society, March 7, 2006
By Anna Workman, Program Associate, WLP
What is the current situation in Bahrain right now as regards the nationality law?
Well, our nationality law gives Bahraini men the right to pass their nationality to their children, but not Bahraini women. When a Bahraini man marries a non-Bahraini woman, she will be granted Bahraini nationality after five years and his children are automatically granted Bahraini nationality. But Bahraini women who are married to non-nationals cannot pass their nationality to their children, which means their children are treated like foreigners in Bahrain. They don't have access to health services, education, and many other benefits for citizens in Bahrain
How does the current law affect women's lives?
Through our meetings with these women, we witnessed the great deal of insecurity and instability they experience within their families. They must renew their children's residency permit every year. They cannot add their children's data to their passport and they cannot travel with them. Their children are considered non-Bahrainis, and so are their husbands.
Claiming Equal Citizenship: The Campaign for Arab Women’s Right to Nationality
In 2006, WLP will stand in solidarity with partners in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and Gulf regions to call for women's equal citizenship rights, including equal rights to confer nationality to their spouses and children. In the majority of MENA and Gulf countries, only men have the legal right to confer nationality to non-national spouses and children.
"Nationality is a case in point of how citizenship in this region is gendered...whether or not you are a national will determine very much whether you're have the right to representation, whether you have the right to social entitlements, whether you're a full citizen or not. So when the laws in most countries in the MENA and Gulf regions say that a citizen is someone born of a father of that country only, this clearly says that the state considers that only men are real citizens," said Lina Abou-Habib, Director of WLP's Lebanese partner Collective for Research and Training on Development-Action (CRTD-A), one of the organizations leading the regional campaign for Arab women's right to nationality.
