Dylan Bettencourt
Employment reforms in Qatar have stalled as migrant workers remain entrapped and exploited by their employers.
A damning report by Amnesty International reveals that the two laws passed by Qatar last year which aimed at allowing migrant workers to leave the country or change their jobs without restriction have not been put into practice, leaving workers bound to their employers.
The Kafala system which was banned in 2018 binds employees to their bosses and requires permission from their seniors if they want to leave the country or change jobs.
Amnesty’s 48-page report quotes a migrant worker in Qatar revealing that they were threatened by their employer when they asked to change their jobs. They were also required to pay nearly R25,000 – five times more than their monthly salary – if they wanted to receive their no-objection certificate.
The newly adapted law allows workers to freely change jobs without permission from their employer but when the worker took the incident to the national government, the case was ignored, according to Amnesty.
“Apparent complacency by the authorities is leaving thousands of workers at continued risk of exploitation by unscrupulous employers with many unable to change jobs and facing wage theft,” said Mark Dummett, the organisation’s global issues programme director.
Dummett said the future of these migrant workers will be even more unclear once the 2022 World Cup comes to an end.
Qatar enlisted two million migrant workers when they won the rights to host the event in 2010.
Thousands of deaths due to poor working conditions were reported but were ignored by the Qatar government. A report by the Guardian earlier this year revealed that around 6,500 migrant workers have died since the country was granted hosting rights.
With just over a year to go before the 2022 World Cup, calls for FIFA to intervene are gaining traction.
“The exploitation of Qatar’s massive migrant workforce has already cast a dark shadow over next year’s World Cup,” said Sacha Dshmukh, Amnesty International UK chief executive.
The government of Qatar released a statement rejecting Amnesty’s claims regarding the labour reforms not being put into practice.
The statement said Amnesty failed to document a single story from among the 242,870 workers who have successfully changed jobs or mention the more than 400,000 workers who have directly benefited from the new minimum wage and other financial incentives.
Image source: @Euronews
