Modern day slavery building Qatar's World Cup

[Sheilbh]

Revealed: Qatar's World Cup 'slaves'
Guardian investigation uncovers abuse and exploitation of migrant workers preparing emirate for 2022 tournament
Pete Pattisson in Kathmandu and Doha
The Guardian, Wednesday 25 September 2013 17.00 BST
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Dozens of Nepalese migrant labourers have died in Qatar in recent weeks and thousands more are enduring appalling labour abuses, a Guardian investigation has found, raising serious questions about Qatar's preparations to host the 2022 World Cup.

This summer, Nepalese workers died at a rate of almost one a day in Qatar, many of them young men who had sudden heart attacks. The investigation found evidence to suggest that thousands of Nepalese, who make up the single largest group of labourers in Qatar, face exploitation and abuses that amount to modern-day slavery, as defined by the International Labour Organisation, during a building binge paving the way for 2022.

According to documents obtained from the Nepalese embassy in Doha, at least 44 workers died between 4 June and 8 August. More than half died of heart attacks, heart failure or workplace accidents.

The investigation also reveals:

• Evidence of forced labour on a huge World Cup infrastructure project.

• Some Nepalese men have alleged that they have not been paid for months and have had their salaries retained to stop them running away.

• Some workers on other sites say employers routinely confiscate passports and refuse to issue ID cards, in effect reducing them to the status of illegal aliens.

• Some labourers say they have been denied access to free drinking water in the desert heat.

• About 30 Nepalese sought refuge at their embassy in Doha to escape the brutal conditions of their employment.

The allegations suggest a chain of exploitation leading from poor Nepalese villages to Qatari leaders. The overall picture is of one of the richest nations exploiting one of the poorest to get ready for the world's most popular sporting tournament.

"We'd like to leave, but the company won't let us," said one Nepalese migrant employed at Lusail City development, a $45bn (£28bn) city being built from scratch which will include the 90,000-seater stadium that will host the World Cup final. "I'm angry about how this company is treating us, but we're helpless. I regret coming here, but what to do? We were compelled to come just to make a living, but we've had no luck."

The body tasked with organising the World Cup, the Qatar 2022 Supreme Committee, told the Guardian that work had yet to begin on projects directly related to the World Cup. However, it said it was "deeply concerned with the allegations that have been made against certain contractors/sub-contractors working on Lusail City's construction site and considers this issue to be of the utmost seriousness". It added: "We have been informed that the relevant government authorities are conducting an investigation into the allegations."

The Guardian's investigation also found men throughout the wider Qatari construction industry sleeping 12 to a room in places and getting sick through repulsive conditions in filthy hostels. Some say they have been forced to work without pay and left begging for food.

"We were working on an empty stomach for 24 hours; 12 hours' work and then no food all night," said Ram Kumar Mahara, 27. "When I complained, my manager assaulted me, kicked me out of the labour camp I lived in and refused to pay me anything. I had to beg for food from other workers."

Almost all migrant workers have huge debts from Nepal, accrued in order to pay recruitment agents for their jobs. The obligation to repay these debts, combined with the non-payment of wages, confiscation of documents and inability of workers to leave their place of work, constitute forced labour, a form of modern-day slavery estimated to affect up to 21 million people across the globe. So entrenched is this exploitation that the Nepalese ambassador to Qatar, Maya Kumari Sharma, recently described the emirate as an "open jail".

Record of deaths in July 2013, from all causes, held by the Nepalese embassy in Doha. Photograph: /guardian.co.uk


"The evidence uncovered by the Guardian is clear proof of the use of systematic forced labour in Qatar," said Aidan McQuade, director of Anti-Slavery International, which was founded in 1839. "In fact, these working conditions and the astonishing number of deaths of vulnerable workers go beyond forced labour to the slavery of old where human beings were treated as objects. There is no longer a risk that the World Cup might be built on forced labour. It is already happening."

Qatar has the highest ratio of migrant workers to domestic population in the world: more than 90% of the workforce are immigrants and the country is expected to recruit up to 1.5 million more labourers to build the stadiums, roads, ports and hotels needed for the tournament. Nepalese account for about 40% of migrant labourers in Qatar. More than 100,000 Nepalese left for the emirate last year.

The murky system of recruitment brokers in Asia and labour contractors in Qatar leaves them vulnerable to exploitation . The supreme committee has insisted that decent labour standards will be set for all World Cup contracts, but underneath it a complex web of project managers, construction firms and labour suppliers, employment contractors and recruitment agents operate.

According to some estimates, Qatar will spend $100bn on infrastructure projects to support the World Cup. As well as nine state-of-the-art stadiums, the country has committed to build an airport, $20bn worth of new roads, $4bn for a causeway connecting Qatar to Bahrain, $24bn for a high-speed rail network, and 55,000 hotel rooms to accommodate visiting fans.

The World Cup is part of an even bigger programme of construction in Qatar designed to remake the tiny desert kingdom over the next two decades.Qatar has yet to start building stadiums for 2022, but has embarked on the big infrastructure projects likesuch as Lusail City that, according to the US project managers, Parsons, "will play a major role during the 2022 Fifa World Cup". The British engineering company Halcrow, part of the CH2M Hill group, is a lead consultant on the Lusail project responsible for "infrastructure design and construction supervision". CH2M Hill was recently appointed the official programme management consultant to the supreme committee. It says it has a "zero tolerance policy for the use of forced labour and other human trafficking practices".

Halcrow said: "Our supervision role of specific construction packages ensures adherence to site contract regulation for health, safety and environment. The terms of employment of a contractor's labour force is not under our direct purview."

Some Nepalese working at Lusail City tell desperate stories. They are saddled with huge debts they are paying back at interest rates of up to 36%, yet say they are forced to work without pay.

"The company has kept two months' salary from each of us to stop us running away," said one man who gave his name as SBD and who works at the Lusail City marina. SBD said he was employed by a subcontractor that supplies labourers for the project. Some workers say their subcontrator has confiscated their passports and refused to issue the ID cards they are entitled to under Qatari law. "Our manager always promises he'll issue [our cards] 'next week'," added a scaffolder who said he had worked in Qatar for two years without being given an ID card.

Without official documentation, migrant workers are in effect reduced to the status of illegal aliens, often unable to leave their place of work without fear of arrest and not entitled to any legal protection. Under the state-run kafala sponsorship system, workers are also unable to change jobs or leave the country without their sponsor company's permission.

A third worker, who was equally reluctant to give his name for fear of reprisal, added: "We'd like to leave, but the company won't let us. If we run away, we become illegal and that makes it hard to find another job. The police could catch us at any time and send us back home. We can't get a resident permit if we leave."

Other workers said they were forced to work long hours in temperatures of up to 50C (122F) without access to drinking water.

The Qatari labour ministry said it had strict rules governing working in the heat, the provision of labour and the prompt payment of salaries. "The ministry enforces this law through periodic inspections to ensure that workers have in fact received their wages in time. If a company does not comply with the law, the ministry applies penalties and refers the case to the judicial authorities."

Lusail Real Estate Company said: "Lusail City will not tolerate breaches of labour or health and safety law. We continually instruct our contractors and their subcontractors of our expectations and their contractual obligations to both us and individual employees. The Guardian have highlighted potentially illegal activities employed by one subcontractor. We take these allegations very seriously and have referred the allegations to the appropriate authorities for investigation. Based on this investigation, we will take appropriate action against any individual or company who has found to have broken the law or contract with us."

The workers' plight makes a mockery of concerns for the 2022 footballers.

"Everyone is talking about the effect of Qatar's extreme heat on a few hundred footballers," said Umesh Upadhyaya, general secretary of the General Federation of Nepalese Trade Unions. "But they are ignoring the hardships, blood and sweat of thousands of migrant workers, who will be building the World Cup stadiums in shifts that can last eight times the length of a football match."

[Barrister]

This is pretty much par for the course in the gulf states, isn't it?  I've read similar stories about domestic servants in Qatar, UAE and the like.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

This is pretty much par for the course in the gulf states, isn't it?  I've read similar stories about domestic servants in Qatar, UAE and the like.

yes.

The Gulf States (well, basically most of the peninsula if you include Saudistan) are built on slavelabour.
there's no excuse for the Guardian to be 'surprised' by it

[The Brain]

At least they have jobs and I think many of them don't have law degrees.

[Jacob]

The Gulf States (well, basically most of the peninsula if you include Saudistan) are built on slavelabour.
there's no excuse for the Guardian to be 'surprised' by it

That's a funny construction on your part.

Is the Guardian 'surprised' by it? Or are they giving it wider exposure given the high profile of the World Cup?

[Sheilbh]

This is pretty much par for the course in the gulf states, isn't it?  I've read similar stories about domestic servants in Qatar, UAE and the like.

Yep. Reason 6578 not to give Qatar the World Cup and, considering everything, should cause Western national FAs to consider their course.

[mongers]

This is pretty much par for the course in the gulf states, isn't it?  I've read similar stories about domestic servants in Qatar, UAE and the like.

Yep. Reason 6578 not to give Qatar the World Cup and, considering everything, should cause Western national FAs to consider their course.

Just like Formula 1 and it's principled drivers voted with their feet over Bahrain.

Oh wait, I may have gotten that wrong.   

[Sheilbh]

On it goes:

Qatar 2022 World Cup workers 'treated like cattle', Amnesty report finds
Fresh fears raised about exploitation after Fifa president declares country 'on right track' over migrant labourers' rights
Owen Gibson, chief sports correspondent

The Guardian, Sunday 17 November 2013 21.00 GMT

A damning Amnesty report has raised fresh fears about the exploitation of the migrant workers building the infrastructure for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, amid a rising toll of death, disease and misery.

The report – published a week after Fifa's president, Sepp Blatter, met the country's emir and declared Qatar was "on the right track" in dealing with workers' rights – claims that some migrant workers are victims of forced labour, a modern form of slavery, and treated appallingly by subcontractors employed by leading construction companies in a sector rife with abuse.

The report, based on two recent investigations in Qatar and scores of interviews, found workers living in squalid, overcrowded accommodation exposed to sewage and sometimes without running water. It found that many workers, faced with mounting debts and unable to return home, have suffered "severe psychological distress", with some driven to the brink of suicide. Discrimination is common, according to the report, which says that one manager referred to workers as "the animals".

It describes one case in which the employees of a company delivering supplies to a construction project associated with the planned Fifa headquarters during the 2022 World Cup were subjected to serious labour abuses. Nepalese workers employed by the supplier said they were treated like cattle. Employees were working up to 12 hours a day, seven days a week, during the summer months when temperatures regularly reach 45C.

Qatar's labour laws stipulate a maximum working day of 10 hours and say no one should work between 11.30am and 3pm during the summer months.

Last month Fifa was forced to address the issue of workers' rights after a Guardian investigation showed that dozens of Nepalese workers had died in recent months, prompting warnings from trade union organisations that 4,000 could be killed before the start of the football tournament.

Blatter promised to travel to Doha to meet the emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, and said he would raise the issue of workers' rights. But after the meeting and a presentation from the 2022 World Cup supreme committee, which includes many senior government representatives, Blatter said he was reassured by the progress that had been made on the issue.

That will not pacify human rights organisations, which have called for improvements to living and working conditions and for urgent action to reform the kafala sponsorship system that ties migrant workers to their employers. Amnesty said the sponsorship system "permits abuse and traps workers".

In November 2011, the Fifa general secretary, Jérôme Valcke, met Qatari officials to address the issue of workers' rights and the Qatari authorities promised to take the issue seriously.

But Amnesty's report, The Dark Side of Migration: Spotlight on Qatar's Construction Sector Ahead of the World Cup, is based on inspection visits in October 2012 and March 2013 and suggests change is nowhere near fast enough, despite a new charter introduced by the supreme committee, which applies only to the World Cup stadiums and not to infrastructure.

Amnesty said many workers had reported poor health and safety standards at work, including some who said they had not been issued with helmets on sites.

It quoted a representative of Doha's main hospital saying that more than 1,000 people were admitted to the trauma unit in 2012 after falling from height at work. Some 10% were disabled as a result and the mortality rate was significant.

Researchers also found migrant workers living in squalid, overcrowded accommodation with no air conditioning, exposed to overflowing sewage or uncovered septic tanks. One large group was found to be living without running water.

The organisation has also documented cases where workers were effectively blackmailed by their employers to get out of the country and others where they were not allowed to leave.

Researchers witnessed 11 men signing papers to get their passports back to leave Qatar in front of government officials, falsely confirming that they had been paid.

The company for which the men worked, ITC, had cashflow problems and 85 workers from India, Nepal and Sri Lanka were left in accommodation with no electricity or running water, with sewage leaking from the ground and piles of rubbish accumulating. Their salaries went unpaid for up to a year and they were forced to sign away any claim to the money before being allowed to leave.

"It is simply inexcusable in one of the richest countries in the world that so many migrant workers are being ruthlessly exploited, deprived of their pay and left struggling to survive," said Amnesty's general secretary, Salil Shetty.

"Our findings indicate an alarming level of exploitation in the construction sector in Qatar. Fifa has a duty to send a strong public message that it will not tolerate human rights abuses on construction projects related to the World Cup."

Amnesty, which carried out interviews with 210 workers and held 14 meetings with Qatari authorities, said that multinational construction firms profiting from the $220bn (£137bn) construction boom in the tiny gas-rich state could not ignore the actions of the web of subcontractors employed to do the work.

"Construction companies and the Qatari authorities alike are failing migrant workers. Employers in Qatar have displayed an appalling disregard for the basic human rights of migrant workers. Many are taking advantage of a permissive environment and lax enforcement of labour protections to exploit construction workers," said Shetty.

Amnesty found that some of the workers who had suffered abuses were working for subcontractors employed by global companies, including Qatar Petroleum, Hyundai E&C and OHL Construction.

"Companies should be proactive and not just take action when abuses are drawn to their attention. Turning a blind eye to any form of exploitation is unforgivable, particularly when it is destroying people's lives and livelihoods," added Shetty.

Following his meeting, Blatter said Fifa could look forward to "an amazing World Cup" in Qatar. "What was presented to us shows that they are going forward not only today but have already started months ago with the problems with labour and workers. The labour laws will be amended and are already in the process of being amended."

The Qatari authorities insist they are being proactive and say the World Cup can be a catalyst for change.

[DGuller]

European sport governing bodies covering for the disgusting oil-rich third-world regimes?  I'm shocked, shocked!

[FunkMonk]

One day Blatter's iron fisted corrupt rule of FIFA will end, to be replaced by the iron fisted corrupt rule of his chosen successor.

[Admiral Yi]

The Economist has an article about foreign workers in Saudi.  The heart of the problem seems to be the kafala system.  The article said that in Saudi kafalas sell sponsorship oversees, which lets the workers into the country, then they're on their own to find work where they can.

I think someone posted an article way back about Canada's guest worker program.  From what I can remember about that the great advantage is that it's administered by the government itself.

[mongers]

Has anything of any merit* ever come out of the Gulf states ?







* Other than the black, viscous stuff**.





** No, I don't Guinness***.





*** Though I guess it's not impossible it's brewed somewhere in the Mid-East.

[Admiral Yi]

Has anything of any merit* ever come out of the Gulf states ?

Al Jazeera
Emirates Airlines
The Jordanian royal family
Those palm tree-shaped housing developments may be a white elephant, but the idea was kind of cool.

[Razgovory]

If only forced labor was legal.  Then it could be regulated safely.

[Josquius]

Wow. Nobody saw this one coming. Maybe it wasn't such an awesome idea to give them the World Cup after all?