Filipinos in Bahrain are either migrants or descendants of the

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

living in

Bahrain Bahrain ( ; ; ar, البحرين, al-Bahrayn, locally ), officially the Kingdom of Bahrain, ' is an island country in Western Asia. It is situated on the Persian Gulf, and comprises a small archipelago made up of 50 natural islands and an ...

. As of 2012, there are approximately 40,000 of these Filipinos in Bahrain.

Economy and employment

Bahrain is the eighth largest destination for Filipino

domestic worker A domestic worker or domestic servant is a person who works within the scope of a residence. The term "domestic service" applies to the equivalent occupational category. In traditional English contexts, such a person was said to be "in service ...

s hired or rehired from 2006 to 2011, and has 21,254 documented overseas Filipino domestic workers as of July 2012. In addition, Filipinos in Bahrain commonly work as accountants, construction contractors, engineers, sales associates, as well as business and government support staff. In March 2011, the Philippine government implemented a "deployment ban" on hiring Filipinos in Bahrain due to the Bahraini uprising as a part of the

Arab Spring The Arab Spring ( ar, الربيع العربي) was a series of Nonviolent resistance, anti-government protests, Rebellion, uprisings and Insurgency, armed rebellions that spread across much of the Arab world in the early 2010s. It began in T ...

, allowing existing Filipino employees to continue working in Bahrain while preventing new workers from entering the nation, but this ban was lifted several months later that year. Filipinos working in Bahrain remitted US$151.82 million from January to November 2012, about 7 per cent more than in the same period in 2011. As per November 2012, Filipinos now account for 10 per cent of Bahrain's population, working mostly as hotel, restaurant and mall employees. Bahrain is a source of

remittance A remittance is a non-commercial transfer of money by a foreign worker, a member of a diaspora community, or a citizen with familial ties abroad, for household income in their home country or homeland. Money sent home by migrants competes wit ...

s sent back to the Philippines, with roughly US$155 million officially sent back in 2011 and a peak of US$166.2 million sent back in 2009. Six Filipino banks have

correspondent account A correspondent account is an account (often called a nostro or vostro account) established by a banking institution to receive deposits from, make payments on behalf of, or handle other financial transactions for another financial institution. Cor ...

s with banks in Bahrain to allow for remittance transfers.

Society and culture

In October 1994, the Philippine School Bahrain was established to serve the overseas Filipino community. The school currently has nearly 900 students in three separate schools: a pre-school, an elementary school, and a secondary school all housed in three separate buildings in the Kanoo Gardens district in

Manama Manama ( ar, المنامة ', Bahrani Arabic, Bahrani pronunciation: ) is the capital and largest city of Bahrain, with an approximate population of 200,000 people as of 2020. Long an important trading center in the Persian Gulf, Manama is h ...

. The school is accredited by the

Philippine Department of Education The Department of Education (abbreviated as DepEd; fil, Kagawaran ng Edukasyon) is the Executive Departments of the Philippines, executive department of the Government of the Philippines, Philippine government responsible for ensuring access t ...

and is seeking accreditation by the

Philippine Accrediting Association of Schools, Colleges and Universities The Philippine Accrediting Association of Schools, Colleges and Universities (PAASCU) is a private, voluntary, non-profit and non-stock corporation which was registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission of the Philippines. It is a servic ...

. In 1998, Akmad Sakkam, the previous Filipino Ambassador to Bahrain, said that "Bahrain is the only country in the Middle East where there are no Filipinos in jail", attributing this to good diplomatic relations and a sense of understanding between the Philippine and Bahraini governments. However, by 2006, this number later rose 18 Filipinos in prison, the majority of them being women. In 2011, a Filipino man in Bahrain was convicted of "encouraging moral depravation" and jailed after

cross-dressing Cross-dressing is the act of wearing clothes usually worn by a different gender. From as early as pre-modern history, cross-dressing has been practiced in order to disguise, comfort, entertain, and self-express oneself. Cross-dressing has play ...

and was later deported. Philippine holidays such as

Independence Day An independence day is an annual event commemorating the anniversary of a nation's independence or statehood, usually after ceasing to be a group or part of another nation or state, or more rarely after the end of a military occupation. Man ...

, commemorating the

Philippine Declaration of Independence The Philippine Declaration of Independence ( fil, Pagpapahayag ng Kasarinlan ng Pilipinas; es, Declaración de Independencia de Filipinas); es, Acta de la proclamación de independencia del pueblo Filipino, link=no) was proclaimed by Fili ...

, are celebrated in Bahrain.

References

{{Demographics of Bahrain

Ethnic groups in Bahrain