HRW urges Qatar to protect migrant workers’ rights

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Qatar should set out a timetable “as soon as practically possible to abolish the sponsorship system and militate against the serious threat of trafficking and forced labour,” Human Rights Watch (HRW) has urged. “We understand change cannot be brought forth overnight in a country with over a million migrant workers,” Jan Egeland, deputy executive director, told Gulf Times yesterday after announcing the key observations from HRW’s World Report 2013. HRW, one of the world’s leading independent organisations dedicated to defending and protecting human rights, has urged Qatari authorities to impose sanctions on violators of laws designed to protect migrant workers’ rights. HRW has called upon the Qatari authorities “to ensure migrant workers have not paid illegal recruitment fees, and prohibit companies from doing business with recruitment agencies and subcontractors, in Qatar and abroad, that impose illegal charges on workers.” “The 2022 World Cup presents Qatar with an unprecedented opportunity to take the lead on migrant workers’ rights in the Gulf region, and to leave a positive and lasting legacy,” Egeland stated. “We are calling for a great games and not a boycott. It is a great thing that the World Cup is coming to the Arab world,” he said. Nicholas McGeehan, a Middle East researcher with HRW, was of the view that “Qatar cannot afford to run a 21st century World Cup with a 19th century labour system.” “We have had discussions with the Qatar 2022 Supreme Committee and are impressed by their commitment. But there is a lack of reforms in key areas,” he said. HRW, which also spoke to Qatar’s National Human Rights Committee and Ministry of Foreign Affairs, hopes to work together in partnership, according to McGeehan. Egeland believes that Qatar has plans for positive change. “We will monitor this each and every year until 2022,” he declared. McGeehan urged that “Qatar ought to enforce the good laws, repeal the bad laws and sanction the violators.” “We have seen the beginnings of some political will, but it has to go forward further,” he said. The HRW officials recounted that migrant workers reported “‘extensive violations of labour law in Qatar.” “Common complaints included late or unpaid wages. Some lived in overcrowded and unsanitary labour camps, with no access to potable water, were not properly ventilated, and not furnished with functioning air-condition units.” McGeehan asserted that the “findings of our report are representative of the situation in Qatar.” “Qatar’s increasing prominence on the international stage should not divert attention from its domestic rights record,” Egeland said.