Dozens of Nepalese migrant workers have given their lives while thousands more continue to endure abusive labor conditions in preparing Qatar to host the 2022 World Cup.
Nearly one Nepalese worker died every day over the summer, most of which were young men who had heart attacks or work-related accidents. The
Guardian found that these deaths were caused by labor abuse comparable to modern-day slavery.
According to documents obtained from the Nepalese embassy in Qatar, at least 44 migrant workers died between June 4 and August 8.
Some of the workers said they hadn’t been paid in months and have been denied access to drinking water in the sweltering heat, which often runs up to 122 degrees Fahrenheit. Some have had their passports ID cards confiscated, reducing them to the status of illegal aliens void of any legal protection, not like they would have the money to go anywhere else, anyway.
Workers on other sites said those in charge of World Cup preparation routinely confiscate the workers’ passports and retain their salaries to keep them from leaving.
Over 30 Nepalese are currently seeking refuge at their embassy to escape these horrific working conditions.
“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 that will include a 90,000-seat stadium where the final game of the World Cup will be played.
“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 event’s organizers, the
Qatar 2022 Supreme Committee, told the
Guardian that 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.”
“We have been informed that the relevant government authorities are conducting an investigation into the allegations,” it added.
The Guardian’s investigation found Nepalese construction workers sleeping 12 to a room in filthy hostels and repeatedly growing ill in the process. Some said they work without pay and are forced to beg for food as if they were homeless.
“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 of the workers have huge debts from Nepal, one of the world’s poorest countries. To re-pay recruitment agents and the borderline-bankrupt Nepalese government for their jobs in Qatar, one of the world’s richest countries, the workers are denied their wages.
Nepalese ambassador to Qatar, Maya Kumari Sharma, recently described Qatar as an “open jail.”
“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.”
According to the
Guardian, Qatar will spend $100 billion on infrastructure projects related to the World Cup, including nine state-of-the-art stadiums, $20 billion worth of new roads, $24 billion for a high-speed railroad and 55,000 hotel rooms to accommodate visitors.
One worker told the Guardian that he’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.”
Even more despicable is how the workers’ torturous lives are constantly mocked in the form of concerns for the participants in the 2022 competition.
“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.”
Via: The Guardian, Top Photo Courtesy: YouTube
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