Women's third national conference recommendations highlighted

Manama, Nov. 6 (BNA): The participants of the Third National Conference of Bahraini Women congratulated Her Royal Highness Princess Sabeeka bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa, Wife of HM the King and President of the Supreme Council of Women (SCW), on the successful "Women and the Law: achievements, challenges, aspirations" conference held under the patronage of Her Royal Highness. The participants stressed the importance of the political Leadership's support to Bahraini women for its huge role in boosting women's presence in all fields and at all levels. The Council's Secretary-General Hala Al Ansari, read the recommendations issued in conclusion of the conference. The recommendations touched on the main issues of legislations, executive resolutions, administrative regulations, legal services provided to Bahraini women and families as well as awareness and training programmes for them. Hala Al Ansari said the conference recommended acceleration of the family provisions law which is considered an urgent community need and the issuance of a glossary memorandum to explain the provisions of Part I of the said law to facilitate for litigants and their attorneys to expedite legal procedures to maintain the privacy of familial disputes through the establishment of an independent/separate building for family courts taking into consideration the nature and privacy of such cases, the revision and modification of executive resolutions and administrative regulations related to the Alimony Fund to alleviate the suffering of women and their children who are entitled to subsistence. She stressed the importance of prompt issuance of executive resolutions pertaining to the Law for the Prevention of Domestic Violence and Caring for Disabled Persons, the modification of legal procedures before the Sharia courts deemed as a law that supports the Family Provisions Law, the activation of monitoring tools to ensure good implementation of national legislations and ministerial resolutions as well as administrative/executive regulations. She added the conference urged the legislative authority to expedite the amending of Nationality Law according to objective conditions and controls to ensure the alleviation of the suffering of the children of a Bahraini woman married to a foreign husband. The conference recommendations urged the civil society organizations concerned with women affairs to continue their role in monitoring the community with regard to issuance, modification, enact of the laws and executive resolutions related to family affairs. The conference stressed the essential need to develop legal work through the provision of executive courts with family and psychiatric guidance experts to extend moral guidance throughout all the stages of litigation. Also, Family Reconciliation Offices should sooner be opened in community centres and linking electronical to facilitate access for Bahraini families to reach the office's services. The conference urged to continue to encourage the private sector to provide support to improve and diversity the quality of legal/social services geared towards Bahraini families. Al Ansari said the conference stressed the significance of setting and activation of women empowerment programmes and ancillary services to support women through the activation of the role of Equal Opportunity Units (EOUs) in legal and judicial institutions, especially in terms of filling the gaps between women and men in the legal and judicial field, and the need to increase the number of judges in family courts and to complete the structure of specialized professional cadres in the Family Reconciliation Office as well as the provision of suitable training proogrammes. Regarding awareness and training programmes, she said: "the conference indicated the importance of issuance of a specialized legislative guidebook to illustrate aspects of investing constitutional tools and monitoring the legislative authority in terms of women issues and the inclusion of women's needs, increasing intake capacity for the specialized training programmes for graduates of law colleges – both men and women – to boost the standard of their job performance on the legal and juidicial posts. The conference commended the Kingdom of Bahrain's achievements and the development of the setup of national legislations and executive ministerial resolutions and administrative regulations, stressing the importance of completing the development process as befits international conventions and agreements pertaining to women and observance of the privacy of the Bahraini community and the provisions of Islamic Sharia. The conference also lauded the establishment of the Family Reconciliation Office and making it mandatory for disputants to resort to family reconciliation before resorting to litigation at the Sharia courts. The conference stressed the importance of integration among all public and private institutions and the respective specialized entities to provide the same services and to expand on the provision of family reconciliation services in order to reduce the incidence of divorce cases and to curb the costs and undesirable impact of divorce on the livelihood of Bahraini families. The secretary-general praised the effective participation of Bahraini youth – both men and women – citing the participation of law college students from all universities in the Kingdom. She expressed the conference appreciation of their efforts in organizing the fifth law forum held under the theme "Women and Youth under the Law" organized by the College of Law, University of Bahrain, as one of the associated activities marking Bahraini Women Day2016. During the conference, Chancellor Salem Al Kuwari the Chairman of the Supreme Judiciary Council, stressed the importance of speeding up part two of the Family Law to ensure all Bahraini women enjoy their full rights, citing the National Action Charter and the Constitutions which stipulated their full freedoms and rights. Al Kuwari added "we are in dire need to complete the rights of women through issuance of the family provisions law." He wondered "for the sake of what do half of all women in the society obtain their rights meanwhile the other half are deprived of these rights and their legal cases are forsaken in the process of jurisprudential interpretation." He added "We want for any woman who resorts to the courts to know her rights clearly through the availability of legal text and integrated procedures which define the rights and duties of a woman." It is worth mentioning that the Third National Conference of Bahraini Women was held under the title of "Women and the Law: Achievements, challenges, aspirations," organized by the Supreme Council of Women in collaboration with the legal and judicial institutions and Bahraini Women Union on November 1-3 simultaneously with the Bahrain Women Day which celebrated outstanding Bahraini women in the legal and judicial fields.