Relocating to Bahrain - Queries

Hello,

I have just joined this forum and have found some excellent guidance and advice on here! I'd be grateful if someone could please assist me with a query of my own? I am relocating to Bahrain in a few months to work within the legal sector. My husband will be moving to Bahrain with me but does not currently have a job there. I have looked at the LMRA website and note that a wife can sponsor her husband (as a dependant) if she is a female expat working in Bahrain (http://lmra.bh/portal/en/faq/question/37). However, I have also found some conflicting information on this forum which states that this is only possible if the wife works in a particular industry. Is anyone able to clarify what the correct approach is and/or confirm if I can sponsor my husband until he finds a job of his own?

Many thanks for your help and contributions.

Welcome.  As you will find out when you come here, a lot of things are not very clear and the rules around those are ambiguous or arbitrary.  This is standard Middle East :)

If you read the link that you posted, carefully; even LMRA has said "It is possible" i.e. they haven't said it is a done deal.   "Possibility" by definition is subject to conditions.

As a matter of practice, women are usually able to sponsor their husbands if they are working in the financial services industry or banks or are on investor visas.  In other cases, it also comes down to the level of influence, your government relations officer has in getting things through.   This is absolutely critical i.e. if you don't have a strong PRO, completely forget about it but if you do, then it is likely that you can still end up sponsoring your husband despite not being in those industries.

I know 2-3 women in a similar situation as yours who were unable to sponsor their spouses despite being at senior positions in different companies and the company then had to give their spouse a work visa.

Also, it is generally easier, if it is just the two of you.  If there are kids involved, they make a big deal about them being on the father's sponsorship.  I have seen it work though when the mother is on an investor visa and the father gives a notarised NOC or when the father is not in the Kingdom. Much more difficult to get both husband and kids on wife sponsorship.

Thank you for your detailed response, Xtang - much appreciated! You're absolutely right about things not being very clear.

I will approach my company and see if they can assist with the spouse visa as i think it's unlikely that my husband will find a job in the first couple of months.

Thank you also for the additional info re: children - luckily it's just the two of us for now but it's helpful to know the process if a child is thrown into the mix!