Page 357 - Bahrain Gov Annual Reports (I)_Neat

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Pearl industry.

Hamad’s accession celebrations they and various other
prisoners were pardoned and liberated.
Bahrain diving laws •vis-a-vis other Gulf States.

Considerable feeling exists at present on the part of
the Bahrain diving community over the unequal conditions
applied to Bahrain nakhudas and foreign nakhudas.

According to the Bahrain diving laws if a nakhuda
employs a diver who actually belongs to some other

nakhuda, even for a few days during the season, the new
nakhuda automatically becomes responsible to the original
nakhuda for the whole debt of the diver who he has

employed, unless the diver has a "barwa" from his
original nakhuda releasing him for the season, It is
customary to issue these Mbarwas” . In some cases the

nakhuda writes on the "barwa" that the diver is free to
dive for the season, in other cases he is released on
"roba" orTTtilth:l , by which method the nakhuda employing

the diver is bound to deduct l/4th or l/3rd of the diver’s
earnings and pay it to the original nakhuda.

This system is .well established in Bahrain and works
very effectively.
•Then*a Bahrain diver however runs away from his
nakhuda and dives with a nakhuda in Oman, or Ziiwait or

elsewhere, without a tTbarwan the Bahrain nakhuda finds
that he has no redress. If he follows his diver to

Oman and sues.the nakhuda who has employed him, the most
that he can hope for is that the diver will be made to
return to him. In Oman and Kuwait and other Gulf States
the Rulers and Courts now declare that as times are so bad

they oannot possibly make their nakhudas responsible for
the whole debt of a diver who they may have illegally