[Despite Qatar ’s
promises to improve conditions, Nepalese migrants have died at a rate of one
every two days in 2014]
By Owen
Gibson, and Pete Pattisson
 |
Nepalese migrant workers queue
to receive official documents in order
to leave
Photograph: Prakash Mathema/
|
Nepalese migrants building the infrastructure to host the 2022
World Cup have died at a rate of one every two days in 2014 – despite Qatar’s
promises to improve their working conditions, the Guardian has learned.
The figure excludes deaths of Indian, Sri Lankan and Bangladeshi
workers, raising fears that if fatalities among all migrants were taken into
account the toll would almost certainly be more than one a day.
Qatar had vowed to reform the industry after the Guardian exposed the desperate plight
of many of its migrant workers last year. The government
commissioned an investigation by the international law firm DLA Piper and
promised to implement recommendations listed in a report published in May.
But human rights organisations have accused Qatar of
dragging its feet on the modest reforms, saying not enough is being done to
investigate the effect of working long hours in temperatures that regularly top
50C.
The Nepalese foreign employment promotion board said 157 of its
workers in Qatar had died between January and mid-November this year – 67 of
sudden cardiac arrest and eight of heart attacks. Thirty-four deaths were
recorded as workplace accidents.
Figures sourced separately by the Guardian from Nepalese
authorities suggest the total during that period could be as high as 188. In
2013, the figure from January to mid-November was 168.
“We know that people who work long hours in high temperatures
are highly vulnerable to fatal heat strokes, so obviously these figures
continue to cause alarm,” said Nicholas McGeehan, the Middle East researcher at
Human Rights Watch.
“It’s Qatar’s responsibility to determine if deaths are related
to living and working conditions, but Qatar flatly rejected a DLA Piper
recommendation to launch an immediate investigation into these deaths last
year.”
Some within Qatar suggest the cardiac arrest death rates could
be comparable to those among Nepalese workers of a similar age at home. The
Indian embassy argued this year that the number of deaths was in line with the
average in their home country. But in the absence of robust research or any
attempt to catalogue the cause of death, human rights organisations say it is
impossible to properly compare figures.
A series of stories in the Guardian have shown that migrant
workers from Nepal, India, Sri
Lanka and elsewhere were dying in their hundreds. While some
were listed as having been killed in workplace accidents, many more were said
to have died from sudden, unexplained cardiac arrest.
The government confirmed in the DLA Piper report that 964
workers from Nepal, India and Bangladesh had
died while living and working in the Gulf state in 2012 and 2013.
The report recommended that Qatar do more to record and
investigate the causes of death among the migrant population but it has made
little outward progress.
After it was published, Qatar said it would reform the kafala system
that keeps workers tied to their employer, and better enforce laws that require
contractors to provide humane living conditions and ban them from seizing
passports.
But the system that Qatar proposed to replace kafala would
still leave workers tied to their employer for the length of their contract,
which could be as much as five years.
Rather than scrapping the exit visa system, which in effect
allows employers to stop their charges leaving the country without permission,
Qatar proposed a complex procedure that still allowed employers to raise
objections.
There are about 400,000 Nepalese workers in Qatar among the 1.4
million migrants working on a £137bn construction spree in the tiny Gulf state.
Many travel to Doha having borrowed money from unscrupulous recruitment
agencies, only to find the wages and conditions on offer differ significantly
from those promised.
The Qatar government also points to increases in the number of
labour inspectors and new laws requiring wages to be paid by electronic
transfer as evidence that it is serious about improving workers’ rights and
conditions.
But an Amnesty International report last month warned that Qatar
was “dragging its feet” when it came to making meaningful changes.
“Despite making repeated
promises to clean up its act ahead of the World Cup, the government of Qatar
still appears to be dragging its feet over some of the most fundamental changes
needed, such as abolishing the exit permit and overhauling its abusive
sponsorship system,” it said.
“Six months later, only a handful of the limited measures
announced in May have even been partially implemented. Overall, the steps taken
so far are woefully insufficient.”
In November the Qatari ministry of labour issued a statement
saying it was doing everything possible to improve working conditions. “We
believe that the people helping us build our country deserve to be fairly paid,
humanely treated and protected against exploitation,” it said. “That is why we
are reforming our labour laws and practices.
“We fully appreciate there is much more to do but, as in every
country in the world, change does not happen overnight. Significant changes
such as these take more time to implement than some may wish, but we intend to
effect meaningful and lasting change for the benefit of all those who live and
work in Qatar.”
