Qatar and FIFA receive pressure to improve treatment of migrant workers
Qatar is one of the most rapidly-developing nations in the world. Thanks to immense wealth from its oil and gas reserves, and having been awarded the 2022 FIFA World Cup, Qatar has been experiencing a massive boom in construction. The buildings will surely be impressive, but international attention has gathered surrounding the treatment and working conditions of the migrant workers actually carrying out the construction. Interviews with some of the 1.5 million foreign workers have revealed experiences of crowded accommodations, poor medical care, and reduced or withheld salaries. Some advocacy groups have even called this labour system a “slave state.”
Qatar uses a labour system known as the Kafala system. It is meant to regulate the relationship between migrant workers and employers in several countries in West Asia, including Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The intention was to provide temporary labour that could be obtained quickly in times of growth and released during leaner times. The system achieves this goal, but the workers being imported are essentially at the mercy of their kafeel (employer). Workers must be sponsored to enter the country, must remain with the same employer, and are unable to leave the country unless given written permission by the kafeel.
In Qatar, workers are also not allowed to form trade unions, and there is no minimum wage. In addition, kafeels have been known to actually confiscate passports and travel documents, despite Qatari law stating that this cannot be done. Other common legal violations include having workers sleep in bunks and having more than four workers sleep in the same room.
The primary reason why workers decide to work in Qatar is the ability to send money home to their families. Workers come from some of the poorest regions in the world, including Nepal, India, Bangladesh, and the Philippines. Recruitment agencies will advertise salaries of 1,500 Qatari rial ($506 CAD) per month to attract workers; however, they will often claim up to half of what is being sent home to families as a fee.
Once the workers are in Qatar, they are stuck until their contracts expire (providing their contracts haven’t been destroyed upon arrival). If workers attempt o move without permission, they are regarded as criminals.
Part of the reason that Qatar is receiving so much negative attention globally is due to the remarkably high number of deaths that have been reported since the country was awarded the World Cup in 2010. The International Trade Union Confederation released a report in 2014 recognizing over 1,200 deaths thus far, and is forecasting 4,000 total worker deaths by the time the tournament begins. For comparison, the 2014 Brazil World Cup had sevem workers killed, the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics had 60 deaths, and the 2012 Summer Olympics in London had zero worker fatalities. The Qatar number includes workers not directly related to stadium building, such as bus drivers and those working on new hotels and transportation routes. However, it is still an alarming number, and one that Francois Crepeau, the U.N. special adviser on migrants’ rights, reported “… too many of these mostly young men return home in a coffin.”
The Qatari government’s response has been unsatisfactory thus far. In a recent briefing entitled Promising Little, Delivering Less, Amnesty International explained that despite promises last year to improve the rights of migrant workers, “…there have been no significant advances in the protection of rights.”
The biggest area of improvement was enacting a wage protection system to help reduce late payments, but this adjustment is still in the process of being implemented, and only applies to workers with salaries—not those with more informal arrangements.
Campaigns by groups such as New FIFA Now are calling for both FIFA and major World Cup sponsors like Coca-Cola, Adidas, and McDonald’s to take action. They want these organizations to take a serious stance on worker treatment, and hold Qatar to the standards they enforce for the working conditions of their own Qatari employees.