Qatar Football World Cup 2022: Controversies around the Treatment of Labor Migrants in The Construction Sites

In 2010, an Arab country in the middle east region was granted the organization of the World cup 2022, Qatar had an ambitious vision where the symbolism of bringing such an international event in a region tamed by conflicts and wars was to unify people and sending a message of peace to the World.

The arrival of a sporting event of this magnitude in the region coincided with the outbreak of the Arab Spring which reflected a form of instability on the political and security level. Qatar’s win represented back then the symbol of peace and unity and promoted an ambitious vision that would restore the image of the Arab world. The challenge was daunting, because Qatar, a state of 11571km2 with very hot weather did not necessarily meet the criteria for hosting a soccer world cup. In this matter, the organizers reassured the international opinion and FIFA by promising to build air-conditioned stadiums and use solar panels to promote the use of clean energy, construction of metro lines, and infrastructures to accommodate the thousands of visitors expected for the event. To achieve this project while respecting the construction deadlines established by FIFA, Qatar has called on foreign labor. According to the numbers put forward by the Qatari government, 30,000 foreign workers have been recruited since the beginning of the World Cup project more than 10 years ago to build the stadiums. The construction of the whole infrastructure was estimated at 250 billion dollars.

However, the concerns surrounding Qatar hosting the world cup were mostly related to the work conditions of construction sites workers and the respect of human rights knowing Qatar’s record in this area. The state did make some reforms in the labor system by ensuring larger protection of labor migrants working and allowing them to change jobs without the permission of their sponsor. However, a report published by Amnesty International revealed the absence of concrete application of those changes and that the conditions of work are still reflecting the forced and abusive nature of the labor system. On top of that, a lot of foreign workers paid a huge amount of money to their recruitment agency to be able to work in Qatar for the World cup project living them with debt. Some of them were fired just months after their arrival and were sent back to their home country without any resources or reimbursement.

The Qatari officials claimed that all companies who were working on the world cup project had to ensure that no worker pays recruitment fees, but the report of 2022 published by the supreme committee for delivery and legacy workers welfare standard revealed that the majority of these workers migrants paid more than 1000 dollars for the procedure. Moreover, a report published by equidem revealed that many workers at Hotels FIFA partners didn’t receive their salaries several times, had to work from 9 to 12 hours, and do extra hours without getting paid. Some of them were fired during covid 19 pandemic and didn’t receive any allowance. In addition to that, many migrant workers contracted the coronavirus and didn’t have health insurance which put them in a more vulnerable situation.

The general controversy around the treatment of workers at construction sites escalated when it was revealed that more than 6500 migrant workers lost their lives in Qatar during the past decade while working in the world cup 2022 projects, and thousands of these deaths are still uninvestigated. On the other hand, FIFA reported only 37 deaths regarding the construction sites.

Source: The Guardian

However, according to Pete Pattisson one of the investigators for this case, many of these workers who came mostly from India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan collapsed while working on the stadium construction sites, others died in a road traffic accident while coming to work, and many others were found dead in their dorms. The main causes of death reported were heart failure and respiratory problems which rises automatic questions about the impact the hot weather may have on workers and if there was an adjustment of work hours in this type of climate. In this case, it’s reasonable to claim that their death was related to work conditions at the construction sites. However, the state’s officials declared that these workers died from natural causes, and refused to open an investigation or do autopsies to understand the reasons for the high rate of fatalities amongst migrant workers during the period of construction of those infrastructures.

Since the publication of deaths of migrant workers report, many NGOs and international law organizations demanded FIFA’s responsibility in investigating what happened on the ground. FIFA has the judicial power to make Qatar accountable if it fails to provide the required work protection, and it also has a moral responsibility to ensure that an event of this scale will not be tamed by death and abuse of those who worked to make it possible. Nevertheless, a World Cup is considered a huge international sports event made up of an audience of millions of fans and multiple sponsors and international companies gaining millions of dollars through their participation in the making of such an event. In that sense, there should be a certain level of accountability also for the construction companies involved especially as some of them are European companies that are supposed to ensure the respect of human rights and workers rights in their projects for Qatar World Cup.