[This month, the Guardian visited a group of more than 60 workers from south Asian countries in a workers' camp in the desert 25km west of Doha. They have had their passports taken from them, in breach of Qatar's labour laws, which prevents them from leaving the country, and many of them have not been paid for several months. Most paid hundreds of pounds to agents in their home countries simply for the right to get a job in Qatar.]
By Robert Booth and Pete Pattisson
 |
Migrant workers in a
labour camp in al-Salaiya, Qatar, have to wash at this
communal tap. Workers
from India, Nepal and Sri Lanka have been lured
to Qatar under false pretences,
and many more are expected over the next
two years as preparations for the 2022
FIFA World Cup begin in earnest.
Photograph: Peter Pattisson
|
Long hours working in punishing desert heat and nights spent squeezed into
squalid accommodation are the most obvious evidence of the plight of migrant
workers in
Stuffed under mattresses in
labourers' dormitories across the Gulf kingdom are contracts that show how
workers from India, Nepal and Sri
Lanka have been lured to work for companies under false pretences, and cannot
escape. The files show some have not been paid for months – in some cases more
than a year – as well as how they were promised far more than they got, and how
the Qatari system of managing migrant labour, known as kafala,
denies them rights to move job, or even leave the country. In the richest country in the
world (per capita), it is bureaucracy instead of manacles and chains
that enslaves the poorest people.
As acknowledged by the US state department in its report on
trafficking, Qatar has pledged itself to tackle the problem by reforming
outdated labour practices that tether workers to sponsors, even if they are
being badly treated. In May, officials promised to insititute a new contractual
basis for employment and an end to the system whereby workers can leave Qatar
only with the permission of their local sponsor. Changes are yet to happen and
in the meantime some workers continue to suffer in conditions that amount to
forced labour.
This month, the Guardian visited a group of more than 60
workers from south Asian countries in a workers' camp in the desert 25km west
of Doha. They have had their passports taken from them, in breach of Qatar's
labour laws, which prevents them from leaving the country, and many of them
have not been paid for several months. Most paid hundreds of pounds to agents
in their home countries simply for the right to get a job in Qatar.
Among them lives Ujjwal Thapa, 25, who left Nepal last
autumn to send home "big money". But he said he has not been paid for
several months despite working for 11 hours a day, six days a week, on building
sites for an Indian contractor.
Without his remittance, his family has been forced to take
out a £660 loan from a private lender charging 48% interest a year. He cannot
leave because his employer has taken his passport and he cannot change jobs
because he can get approval to do so only from his employer.
Another worker was conned over the wage he would earn. His
immigration document, stamped by the Nepalese government before his departure
from Kathmandu, shows he had agreed to work as a foreman on a basic salary of
£410 a month. But the contract signed with the employer on arrival was for £150
a month to work as a carpenter – a 64% cut. Without even money for food, the
men have been running up huge debts at the local grocery store.
Referring to Qatar's preparations before the 2022 World
Cup, the state department report says: "Initial consent of a construction
worker to accept a tough job in a harsh environment does not waive his or her right
to work free from abuse. When an employer or labour recruiter deceives workers
about the terms of employment, withholds their passports, holds them in brutal
conditions, and exploits their labour, the workers are victims of
trafficking."
About 1.4 million migrant workers – making up a large
majority of the population: Qataris number more than 2 million – are powering
Qatar's breakneck development and more are flooding in every day. Workers'
accommodation is being built for the 220,000 more who are expected over the
next two years as preparations for the 2022 FIFA World Cup begin in earnest.
But the problems caused by kafala, the labour system
that requires workers to be sponsored by a local employer, persist. There is
clear evidence that workers are frequently tricked into travelling to
work in Qatar under false pretences and are not free to escape the misery
they find.
The state department puts it bluntly: "Delayed, or
nonpayment of, salaries are a leading driver of forced labour, including debt
bondage, in Qatar." Washington put Qatar on its trafficking watchlist
because "the government did not reform the restrictive sponsorship system,
prosecute or convict any trafficking offenders or sufficiently enforce the
sponsorship law that provides sanctions for employer who withhold workers'
wages and passports".
Escape is extremely hard. Apart from wanting to hold on for
their unpaid wages, the workers do not have their passports and only their
employer, for whom they are currently working for nothing, can provide them
with exit permits. Neither are they free to change jobs unless their employer
or sponsor provides them with a "no objection certificate".
A report published in May by London firm DLA Piper, and
commissioned by Qatar, recommended "a wide-ranging and comprehensive
review of the kafala system with a view to implementing
reforms which strengthen and protect the rights of free movement of migrant
workers in accordance with Qatar's international obligations".
The exit permit system should be scrapped, the report said,
there should be heavy fines for retaining passports and employers should no
longer have the right to block a worker from changing jobs.
"We are going to abolish the kafala system and it will move to the
legislative institutions," said Colonel Abdullah Saqr al-Mohannadi, human
rights director of the Qatari interior ministry. "It will be replaced by a
contractual relationship between employer and employee. We hope that the exit
visa will be abolished completely."
Those changes cannot come too soon for those trapped unpaid
in Qatar's desert labour camps.
@ The Guardian
@ The Guardian
