Human rights advocacy group Amnesty International has claimed that labour exploitation remains rampant in Qatar and criticised the Gulf country for “failing to deliver significant reforms.” The statement comes before the fifth anniversary of Qatar winning the rights to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup.
“Too little has been done to address rampant migrant labour abuse. Qatar’s persistent labour reform delays are a recipe for human rights disaster,” alleged Amnesty International’s gulf migrant rights researcher Mustafa Qadri. “The reforms proposed by the government fail to tackle the central issues that leave so many workers at the mercy of employers, yet even these changes have been delayed. Unless action is taken – and soon – then every football fan who visits Qatar in 2022 should ask themselves how they can be sure they are not benefiting from the blood, sweat and tears of migrant workers.”
Amnesty International carried out five research missions to Qatar over the last four years to study the condition of migrant workers. The latest report, issued in May 2015, found that Qatar had seriously fallen back on implementing certain reforms including the introduction of a wage protection system, expanding the labour inspector force to 400 and changing the controversial Kafala system. Changes to the employee sponsorship system, which has been at the crux of most labour exploitation cases in Qatar, will not be implemented until 2016 – Amnesty said. The proposed changes to Kafala system, however, will still not allow workers to change jobs without their employer’s permission – the pressure group claimed.
Qatar implemented the wage protection system this year after a number of delays and also announced new accommodation to house workers. Although they were welcome steps, Amnesty was dissatisfied with the pace of reform. Qadri also blamed FIFA for its tacit role in condoning the exploitation of migrant workers in Qatar
“FIFA has played its part in this sorry performance. It knew there were labour rights issues in Qatar,” he said. “FIFA has bent over backwards to make a Qatar World Cup work, even taking the unprecedented step of moving the tournament from summer to winter. But apart from occasional public statements the organisation has not set any clear, concrete agenda for how it will push Qatar to ensure migrant workers’ rights are respected. FIFA may be moving to new leadership in 2016 but it will not be able to get past its current challenges until it makes it clear that Qatar’s hosting of the World Cup is contingent on respect for human rights.”
Amnesty further urged FIFA to pressure Qatar to improve the migrant workers’ rights in the country before it hosted the tournament.
