Human Rights Watch denounces exploitation of migrant workers in Qatar
Months without pay, unhealthy conditions, illegal detentions by employees...the kafalah system that prevails in Qatar links migrant workers to their bosses and gives rise to all sorts of abuses. The country's authorities committed themselves in 2017 to the International Labour Organisation (ILO) to carry out reforms to correct this situation. A new report by the NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) presented on Monday claims that nothing has changed. The study is based on more than 93 interviews with migrants working in more than 60 companies or employers and has reviewed legal documents and papers.
"I have been waiting to collect the money owed to me since August 2019," explains a 34-year-old engineer who was interviewed for the report prepared by (HRW). This employee ended up going to a labour court to denounce the non-payment of seven months' wages. He had to borrow money from some friends to send it to his relatives in Nepal. "I am starving because I don't even have money for food. How will I pay back my loans if I don't get my salary through the legal process? Sometimes I think suicide is my only option.
Despite the country's reforms in recent years, wage abuses are persistent and widespread in at least 60 employers and businesses in Qatar, the HRW report has documented. The organization says it has found numerous cases of wage abuse in a wide range of occupations: security guards, waiters, baristas, bouncers, cleaners, administrative staff and construction workers. Although much of the abuse is concentrated on the construction sites in preparation for Qatar's hosting of the 2022 World Cup.
"Ten years after Qatar won the right to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup, immigrant workers still face delays, non-payment and deductions from their wages," explained Michael Page, HRW's deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa, in a statement released by the NGO. "We have heard of workers who have died of hunger due to arrears of wages, indebted workers who work very hard in Qatar only to be underpaid, and workers trapped in abusive conditions for fear of reprisals," Page said.
Qatar's production system depends on the two million migrant workers, who make up about 95 per cent of its total labour force. Many are building or servicing the stadiums, transportation, hotels and other infrastructure for the upcoming 2022 FIFA World Cup. Many come to Qatar in the hope of stable jobs and income, but many find themselves in wage abuse that puts them in debt and traps them in these jobs with ineffective redress mechanisms. A 38-year-old human resources manager for a construction company in Qatar, who has a contract to work outside a stadium for the World Cup, has said his monthly salary has been delayed four months at least five times between 2018 and 2019.
Wage abuses are also due to deceptive hiring practices both in Qatar and in the workers' home countries, which force them to pay between $700 and $2,600 to secure jobs in Qatar. By the time they arrive in the country, they are already in debt and trapped in jobs that often pay less than they were promised. Business practices, including the pay as you go clause, exacerbate wage abuse and allow subcontractors who have not been paid to delay payments to workers.
Wage abuses have been further exacerbated since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Some employers used the pandemic as a pretext to withhold wages or refuse to pay outstanding wages to workers who were arrested and forcibly repatriated. Some workers have claimed that they could not even afford to buy food. Others said they had to go into debt to survive.
The results of this report have been sent by HRW to the Qatari Ministry of Labour and Interior as well as to FIFA and the Supreme Committee for Organisation and Legacy of Qatar. FIFA has encouraged workers and NGOs who wish to register complaints regarding FIFA World Cup venues through the Supreme Committee's Workers' Welfare. "Qatar has two years left before players kick the first ball at the FIFA World Cup," said Michael Page, HRW's Middle East and North Africa Officer. "Time is running out and Qatar must demonstrate that it will deliver on its promise to abolish the kafalah system, improve its wage control systems, accelerate its preparedness mechanisms and take further steps to address wage abuse," Page concluded.