Revealed: Qatar's World Cup 'slaves'
Exclusive: Abuse and exploitation of migrant workers preparing emirate for 2022
World Cup construction 'will leave 4,000 migrant workers dead'
Analysis: Qatar 2022 puts Fifa's reputation on the line
-
- The Guardian, Wednesday 25 September 2013 12.46 EDT
Link to video: Qatar: the migrant workers forced to work for no pay in World Cup host country
Dalli Kahtri and her husband, Lil Man, hold photos of their sons, both
of whom died while working as migrants in Malaysia and Qatar. Their
younger son (foreground photo) died in Qatar from a heart attack, aged
20. Photograph: Peter Pattison/guardian.co.uk
Dozens of Nepalese migrant labourers have died in
Qatar
in recent weeks and thousands more are enduring appalling labour
abuses, a Guardian investigation has found, raising serious questions
about Qatar's preparations to host the 2022 World Cup.
This
summer, Nepalese workers died at a rate of almost one a day in Qatar,
many of them young men who had sudden heart attacks. The investigation
found evidence to suggest that thousands of Nepalese, who make up the
single largest group of labourers in Qatar, face exploitation and abuses
that amount to modern-day
slavery, as defined by the International Labour Organisation, during a building binge paving the way for 2022.
According
to documents obtained from the Nepalese embassy in Doha, at least 44
workers died between 4 June and 8 August. More than half died of heart
attacks, heart failure or workplace accidents.
The investigation also reveals:
•
Evidence of forced labour on a huge World Cup infrastructure project.
•
Some Nepalese men have alleged that they have not been paid for months
and have had their salaries retained to stop them running away.
•
Some workers on other sites say employers routinely confiscate passports
and refuse to issue ID cards, in effect reducing them to the status of
illegal aliens.
• Some labourers say they have been denied access to free drinking water in the desert heat.
• About 30 Nepalese sought refuge at their embassy in Doha to escape the brutal conditions of their employment.
The
allegations suggest a chain of exploitation leading from poor Nepalese
villages to Qatari leaders. The overall picture is of one of the richest
nations exploiting one of the poorest to get ready for the world's most
popular sporting tournament.
"We'd like to leave, but the company
won't let us," said one Nepalese migrant employed at Lusail City
development, a $45bn (£28bn) city being built from scratch which will
include the 90,000-seater stadium that will host the World Cup final.
"I'm angry about how this company is treating us, but we're helpless. I
regret coming here, but what to do? We were compelled to come just to
make a living, but we've had no luck."
The body tasked with
organizing the World Cup, the Qatar 2022 Supreme Committee, told the
Guardian that work had yet to begin on projects directly related to the
World Cup. However, it said it was "deeply concerned with the
allegations that have been made against certain
contractors/sub-contractors working on Lusail City's construction site
and considers this issue to be of the utmost seriousness". It added: "We
have been informed that the relevant government authorities are
conducting an investigation into the allegations."
The Guardian's
investigation also found men throughout the wider Qatari construction
industry sleeping 12 to a room in places and getting sick through
repulsive conditions in filthy hostels. Some say they have been forced
to work without pay and left begging for food.
"We were working on
an empty stomach for 24 hours; 12 hours' work and then no food all
night," said Ram Kumar Mahara, 27. "When I complained, my manager
assaulted me, kicked me out of the labour camp I lived in and refused to
pay me anything. I had to beg for food from other workers."
Almost all migrant workers have huge debts from
Nepal,
accrued in order to pay recruitment agents for their jobs. The
obligation to repay these debts, combined with the non-payment of wages,
confiscation of documents and inability of workers to leave their place
of work, constitute forced labour, a form of modern-day slavery
estimated to affect up to 21 million people across the globe. So
entrenched is this exploitation that the Nepalese ambassador to Qatar,
Maya Kumari Sharma,
recently described the emirate as an "open jail".
Record of deaths in July 2013, from all causes, held by the Nepalese embassy in Doha. Photograph: /guardian.co.uk
"The
evidence uncovered by the Guardian is clear proof of the use of
systematic forced labour in Qatar," said Aidan McQuade, director of
Anti-Slavery International, which was founded in 1839. "In fact, these
working conditions and the astonishing number of deaths of vulnerable
workers go beyond forced labour to the slavery of old where human beings
were treated as objects. There is no longer a risk that the World Cup
might be built on forced labour. It is already happening."
Qatar
has the highest ratio of migrant workers to domestic population in the
world: more than 90% of the workforce are immigrants and the country is
expected to recruit up to 1.5 million more labourers to build the
stadiums, roads, ports and hotels needed for the tournament. Nepalese
account for about 40% of migrant labourers in Qatar. More than 100,000
Nepalese left for the emirate last year.
The murky system of
recruitment brokers in Asia and labour contractors in Qatar leaves them
vulnerable to exploitation. The supreme committee has insisted that
decent labour standards will be set for all World Cup contracts, but
underneath it a complex web of project managers, construction firms and
labour suppliers, employment contractors and recruitment agents operate.
Read More here
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Qatar World Cup 'slaves': the official response
The
company behind the Lusail City development, Qatar's 2022 World Cup
organising committee and the labour ministry respond to allegations of
worker exploitation
-
- theguardian.com, Wednesday 25 September 2013 12.00 EDT
Lusail Real Estate Development Company:
Lusail
City will not tolerate breaches of labour or health and safety law. We
continually instruct our contractors and their subcontractors of our
expectations and their contractual obligations to both us and individual
employees.
We are extremely concerned at the allegations
highlighted to us. Lusail employs, directly and via subcontractors, over
20,000 people. We value each employee.
All of our subcontractors
are legally obliged to meet, as a minimum, Qatar labour law. In
addition, Lusail expects our subcontractors to go beyond the law in the
protection of individual employees both in health & safety and
labour law.
The vast majority of contractors exceed these requirements and are delivering global best practice.
The
Guardian have highlighted potentially illegal activities employed by
one subcontractor. We take these allegations very seriously and have
referred the allegations to the appropriate authorities for
investigation. Based on this investigation, we will take appropriate
action against any individual or company who has found to have broken
the law or contract with us.
A company spokesperson
The Qatar 2022 Supreme Committee
The
Qatar 2022 Supreme Committee (Q22) is deeply concerned with the
allegations that have been made against certain
contractors/sub-contractors working on Lusail City's construction site
and considers this issue to be of the utmost seriousness. We have been
informed that the relevant government authorities are conducting an
investigation into the allegations.
While construction on work
relating directly to the 2022 Fifa World Cup in Qatar has not yet
commenced, we have always believed that hosting the 2022 Fifa World Cup
in Qatar could be the catalyst for positive change, particularly for
accelerating human and social development in Qatar. We firmly believe
that all workers engaged on our projects, and those of the other
infrastructure developers in Qatar, have a right to be treated in a
manner that ensures at all times their wellbeing, safety, security, and
dignity. This is our top priority as we begin to deliver on the promises
made in our bid to host the 2022 Fifa World Cup in Qatar.
The
Qatar 2022 Workers' Charter is available to the public and is provided
to all of our potential contractors. Q22's Workers' Charter is just the
first step in our overall strategy for improving workers' welfare in
Qatar.
Clauses protecting the rights of workers on Q22 projects
will be enshrined in our contracts and will supplement all relevant
Qatari laws by taking additional steps that Q22 has identified in order
to enhance the welfare of our workers. We are driven by transparency in
setting up our standards, which will include a robust enforcement and
monitoring mechanism.
We are working with international NGOs,
including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. We also maintain
an open channel of dialogue with the International Labour Organisation
(ILO) on these issues, via close consultation with the Ministry of
Labour and other relevant government agencies.
Q22 is also working
with Qatar's Human Rights Co-ordination Committee (QHRCC) which
consists of representatives from Q22, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
the Ministry of Labour, Qatar Foundation for Human Trafficking, Qatar
Foundation for Child and Women Protection, the Follow up and Search Unit
of the Ministry of Interior, and the National Human Rights Committee.
We are committed with the government to address these issues.
Answers to the Guardian's questions to the Qatar labour ministry
Are the authorities aware of the numbers of Nepalese dying on their construction sites?
According
to article 48 of Qatar Labour Law, No.14 of 2004: "The employer shall
record injuries incurred by any of its employees."
According to
article 108 of Qatar Labour Law, No.14 of 2004: "If the worker dies
while on duty or because of the work or sustains a work injury the
employer or his representative shall immediately notify the police and
the department of the incident.
"The notification shall include
the name, age, profession, address and nationality of the worker and a
brief description of the incident, the circumstance where it took place
and the actions taken for aiding or curing the worker.
"The police
shall upon receipt of the information undertake the necessary enquiries
and the record shall contain the statements of the witnesses and the
employer or his representative and the statements of the injured if his
condition so permits and the record shall explain the relationship of
the incident to the work.
"The police shall upon completion of the
inquiry send a copy of the record to the department and a copy to the
employer. The Department may require completion of the enquiry if it
deems necessary."
According to article 115 of Qatar Labour Law,
No.14 of 2004: "The employer shall every six months provide the
department with a statistics of the work injuries and occupational
diseases in accordance with the forms prepared for this purpose and the
procedures to be prescribed by a decision of the minister.
According
to article 105 of Qatar Labour Law, No.14 of 2004: "The periodical
medical check-ups shall be carried out on the workers exposed to the
dangers of inflication with the vocational diseases in all activities of
the work at intervals appropriate to the hazards involved in the work
in accordance with the measures to be specified by the competent
authorities specifying the types of such check-ups and the intervals in
which they shall be carried out.
Read More Here
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Azfar Khan of the International Labour Organisation on Qatar and the World Cup
TheGuardian
Published on Sep 27, 2013
Azfar Khan of the International Labour Organisation on Qatar and the World Cup
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Azfar
Khan, the ILO's senior labour migration adviser in the Arab states,
tells the Guardian that Qatar is failing to fully implement an
international convention banning the use of forced labour ahead of the
2022 football World Cup
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