Since taking over the premier football tournament (November 20-December 18), Qatar has been frequently criticized by international unions and NGOs for human rights abuses
Non-payment of wages is the “main complaint” of migrant workers to Qatar’s Ministry of Labor, according to two International Labor Organization (ILO) reports, published today (1/11), 19 days before the start of the World Cup 2022, which will be hosted in the wealthy Gulf state.
The number of related complaints has “more than doubled (to 34,425 between October 2021 and October 2022), thanks to the creation of an electronic filing platform, since last year.
“The main causes of the complaints are related to the non-payment of wages and severance benefits, as well as the annual leave, which is not granted or not paid” is typically stated in the reports, noting that 66.5% of the cases were settled amicably and 30 .7% in the courts, as in 84% of cases “the judge agreed with the worker”.
“Until July 2022, 582,400,000 Qatari riyals (€160 million) had been paid in compensation to more than 37,000 workers,” according to these surveys, while “this amount amounted to 1,165,316,181 Qatari riyals (over €320 million) on 30 September 2022. This demonstrates the extent of the unpaid wages problem, which has been exacerbated by the coronavirus crisis.”
Since taking over the premier soccer tournament (November 20-December 18), Qatar has been frequently criticized by international unions and NGOs for human rights abuses, particularly of migrant workers from Asia and the United States, in the construction, security, hospitality and domestic work.
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Between 2018 and 2020, the emirate carried out reforms, which had a “positive impact”, according to 86% of 1,036 migrant workers surveyed between May and June 2022, as part of these reports.
The introduction of the minimum wage, in March 2021, has affected “more than 280,000 workers or approximately 13% of the total workforce in the private sector”, as highlighted in the reports, while, in August 2022, 67,128 companies had registered with the System of Wage Protection which was created in 2015 and 913 of them were breaking the rules, risking fines and imprisonment.
These reports also show that the number of workers being treated for heat-related problems has dropped since the new rules in 2021. However, they do not report the number of workplace deaths, which the reports estimate to 50 for 2020.
NGOs accuse Qatar of “reducing” the number of World Cup-related construction site deaths and call on FIFA to set up a workers’ compensation fund.
At the same time, it highlights “the need to ensure that everyone can benefit from labor mobility laws”, while more than 348,450 people were able to change jobs between 1 November 2020 and 31 August 2022, which was previously not possible, without the employer’s permission.
“The rights of domestic workers must be better protected,” the relevant reports conclude, while NGOs worry about the… pause in reforms after the World Cup.
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