Qatar's Migrant Worker Problem

With much of the world media covering the Ukraine situation (latest update: Russian troops have taken over Crimea), this post will take a different tact and focus on an issue that is slowly gaining traction: the deadly exploitation of migrant workers in Qatar in the lead-up to the 2022 World Cup.

Back in September 2013, The Guardian issued a scathing article about the conditions faced by migrant workers in Qatar.  That article focused primarily on the conditions of Nepalese workers.  A related article quoted the International Trade Union Confederation in estimating that 4,000 migrant workers would die working on World Cup-related projects by 2022.  Given that Nepal relies on its migrant workers going to Qatar, Nepal was disinclined to criticize Qatar in the wake of those reports.

Migrant workers in Qatar line up to take buses back to their living accommodations (Source: The Guardian)

Last week, the issue was raised once again as The Guardian reported that more than 500 Indian migrant workers had died in Qatar since January 2012.  The downside was that the numbers, which were released from the Indian embassy pursuant to a FOIA-type request from media, did not explain the exact nature of those deaths.  The Qatari government capitalized on this omission by making the dubious claim that the worker death rate was normal, given the number of Indian migrant workers in Qatar (500,000), and claiming that there was a "campaign" against Qatar.

Why, with conflict all around the world, is the situation of migrant workers in Qatar a pressing issue?  Well, for one, the kafala system ingrained into Qatar's economic system is a system designed for worker exploitation.  Under the kafala system, a migrant worker is sponsored by an employer; the employer then has near-total control over the migrant worker's life.  The employer can take the worker's passport, withhold pay, make the worker labor long hours (in the Middle Eastern desert) without sufficient access to water, and keep the worker in squalid living conditions.  If the worker wants to change jobs, there is often no recourse; the employer is supposed to provide an identification card but often doesn't, making an employee who flees an undocumented worker subject to arrest and deportation.  Moreover, there is even an "exit visa" requirement whereby an employer who has a dispute with a worker can legally prevent the worker from leaving Qatar.  This issue gained international attention when a professional French soccer player was denied an exit visa and was forced to stay in Qatar for a year while he negotiated a settlement with his soccer team-employer.  The international soccer player's union responded to this by calling on Qatar to end the kafala system for pro soccer players because it "goes to the heart of respecting their basic human rights."  The fact that a professional athlete was forcibly kept in Qatar by his employer -- and that such a practice is built into the legal system -- is emblematic of the extreme level to which employers control migrant workers' lives in Qatar.

The conditions of these workers is in itself a reason to call attention to Qatar's state-sponsored abuse of migrant workers.  The fact remains, however, that this is now the world's responsibility: by accepting Qatar's assurances that it could transform itself into a host site for the World Cup, the world community must now recognize that it has implicitly blessed Qatar's massive infrastructure development.  And that development is not just stadium-building.  Indeed, the massive project will cost hundreds of billions of dollars and includes building an entire city from scratch.  Moreover, this massive re-shaping of the country, and its attendant migrant worker abuse, is inextricably linked to the 2022 World Cup:

Fifa and the Qatar World Cup organising committee are now tangled in a Gordian knot. The human rights groups that have been pressuring Fifa and the Qataris demand to know whether there will be any meaningful reform to improve the welfare and safety of workers on all building projects. In Qatar itself, where politics has been described as akin to a medieval star chamber, an internal battle is raging. There are liberal forces who want to change the labour laws but are equally aware that sweeping away the kafala system that ties migrant workers to their employers would place huge question marks over its ability to fulfil its "2030 Vision" for the country. 

The dizzying and unprecedented plan to spend hundreds of billions transforming the infrastructure of a country that was largely desert as recently as the 1970s can only be founded on cheap migrant labour. 

Therein lies the dilemma – not only for the Qatari authorities, but for the British, German and French companies that have profited handsomely from the bonanza. 

Abolish the culturally embedded kafala system and with it may go the mechanism for ensuring the almost absurdly ambitious plans to build cities, metro lines, roads and airports from scratch.

Ultimately, Qatar may indeed be transformed into a dizzying spectacle of modernity for all the world to admire, but to do so it will rely on the age-old practice of worker exploitation.  The world -- or at the very least, Fifa -- must decide how far it will go to hold Qatar accountable for these practices.