As the first anniversary of the Gulf state’s hosting of the 2022 World Cup approaches, Rights group Amnesty International has accused Qatar of “continuing failure” on workers’ rights.
Following Qatar’s successful bid to hold the first World Cup in the Middle East, and during the tournament, the gas-rich emirate faced a barrage of criticism over its human rights record and treatment of migrant workers.
But beginning in 2017, Doha, with the help of the United Nations International Labour Organization (ILO), overhauled its employment laws, introducing a minimum wage along with health and safety reforms.
It also dismantled the controversial “Kafala” sponsorship system that gave employers powerful rights over whether workers could leave their jobs or even the country.
Amnesty in a statement on Thursday said it is not enough, “Qatar’s continuing failure to remedy abuses faced by migrant workers and adequately protect them from labour exploitation is tainting the legacy of the FIFA men’s World Cup one year on,” the group said .
“The government must urgently renew its commitment to protecting workers, while both FIFA and Qatar should agree to remediation plans for all those who suffered,” the group’s head of economic social justice, Steve Cockburn, said.
In response, Qatar’s International Media Office said the World Cup had “accelerated” the country’s labour reforms and left a “lasting tournament legacy”.
It added that changes it made set “an example for other countries on how a system can be successfully overhauled” and that “existing reforms continue to be fully implemented”.
Amnesty and other rights groups have repeatedly demanded that Qatar and international football’s governing body institute a fund for worker injuries and deaths from the World Cup.
Qatar’s government has disputed the level of accidental deaths on construction sites, reported by rights groups to be in the thousands, and accused critics of its World Cup of double standards.
Amnesty questioned the maintenance of the minimum wage at its 2021 level, despite an increased cost of living, and said shortcomings continued on wage theft with obstruction to workers’ movement between jobs persisting as employers exploit the system.
In its own progress report published earlier this week, the ILO’s Qatar office said there were still cases of retaliation by employers against workers who request job changes, including cancelling residency visas or filing false absconding charges.
Nevertheless, the UN watchdog noted that while employer retaliation remains a concern, the ILO has seen a significant decrease in the number of such cases compared to prior years.
|RFI
