After Amnesty International investigation.. Qatar World Cup organizers admit exploitation of migrant workers
Amnesty International’s investigation into forced labor and serious abuse of migrant workers in Qatar has clearly resonated at home and abroad.
World Cup organizers in Qatar have admitted to exploiting workers while signing up for the FIFA World Cup in Doha, confirming their failure after an Amnesty International investigation confirmed that security guards were forced to work in conditions it called forced labor by exceeding the maximum workweek of 60 hours and not getting a day off for months or even years.
Qatar did not provide details on the violations against subcontractors working at the 2021 Club World Cup and Arab Cup, according to SOCCER.
Three companies were found to be non-compliant in a number of areas.. These abuses were completely unacceptable and led to a range of actions, including placing contractors on a watch list or blacklist to avoid their work on future projects – including the FIFA World Cup – before reporting the contractors to the Labor Ministry for further investigation and punitive action.
Exploitation of workers continues in Qatar despite claims by World Cup organizers that measures have been introduced since 2014 – four years after FIFA granted hosting rights – to protect health and safety.
Stephen Cockburn from Amnesty International said: Many of the security guards we spoke to know their employers were breaking the law but felt unable to challenge them. Physically and emotionally exhausted, workers continued to report duty under the threat of financial sanctions – or worse, termination of contract or deportation.
Despite the progress Qatar has made in recent years, our research indicates that abuses in the private security sector – which will be in high demand during the World Cup – remain systematic and structural, he said.
He noted: FIFA should focus on doing more to prevent abuses in the inherently risky private security sector, or to see the heroism more tainted by abuses. More broadly, FIFA should also use its influence to pressure Qatar to better implement its reforms and enforce its laws.
Amnesty International in its report on Thursday strongly condemned the working conditions of security guards in Qatar, including in projects related to the 2022 FIFA World Cup, stressing that these conditions can be considered forced labor.
Amnesty International reports on 34 current and former employees of eight private security companies, mainly migrant workers from Kenya and Uganda, as saying: Companies and the regime force them to work more than 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, or the equivalent of 84 hours a week, sometimes in the direct sun without shade or drinking water, during the emirate’s hottest months.
Qatari law provides for a maximum of 60 hours per week, with one day off, the minimum set by the International Labor Organization.
Workers taking this weekly or sick leave risk arbitrary wage discounts” ILO said, adding that overtime is insufficiently paid and there are no unions to defend workers’ rights.
The non-governmental organization said that FIFA and the Supreme Committee of the World Cup 2022 did not renew the contracts with two of these three companies and reported them to the Qatari Ministry of Labor, expressing regret that this did not happen at the right time.
