As a person who lived in Qatar for more than half of my life, I believe I can say that Qatar does not deserve the honour to host the World Cup.
Don't get me wrong, I used to support Qatar's bid when I heard about it. When Qatar hosted Asian Games in 2006 I was one of the those expatriates who wholeheartedly supported Qatar's involvement and took pride in such an honour bestowed upon the nation I resided in.
But now I am dead against it.
It is not because of the extreme heat, as mentioned by Marc Bodnick, or the funding of the terror groups, as pointed out by Jeremy White. It is because of the outright human rights abuse of the unskilled workers in Qatar. As of today, more than 1200 labourers involved in various construction projects for the World Cup have died.
Qatar, and the the rest of the nations in the Arabian peninsula, practises a modern form of bonded slavery called Kafala system that:
- Confiscates the passport of the employee and holds it for ransom.
- Puts the onus of providing exit permit on the Qatari sponsor, aka the "owner."
- Pays less than that was promised or maybe not at all.
- Refuses to let the employee leave or change job if the worker gets a new source of employment.
- Puts the workers in horrible housing areas, called "camp," with facilities that are really substandard.
- Arrests anyone who reports abuse of such unskilled workers.
The typical living condition seen in such "camps" where the workers are packed in like sardines in a squalid environment.
Living in Qatar I heard very little about such abuses as the media isn't exactly free enough to report such violations of basic labour rights. Any such web site that criticises Qatar's labour system is blocked.
It was when I returned to India I came to learn about the horrible nature of the situation there. I read articles and saw news videos that explained the horrendous scene in Qatar. It made me unhappy to learn that the same situation was seen during the preparation for the Asian Games. On realising that I was blissfully ignorant of the plight of such workers during the preparation for the Asian Games made me sick.
To puts things in perspective check the infographic below that compares worker deaths for various sporting events that took place over the past decade. Don't let the size of the chart faze you. It is the harsh truth.
Source: An investigation done by The Washington Post. Though the death toll seems off, we can safely assume that the deaths related to the construction projects for the World Cup are still very high. I have given the reasons for the high death toll in the below paragraph.
What the Qatari authorities and FIFA don't see is that the people who died are not just a part of some statistic made by a foreign media house. But they are people from India, Bangladesh and Nepal who have families back home. These people came searching for greener pastures by taking up huge debts that their families will not be able to pay off. These people died not only because of the extreme heat but also because of the inept medical care provided for the injured and sick, shoddy work ethics, and lax safety standards followed in such construction projects they work in. To further compound the situation these workers don't get any medical or life insurance that can at least provide some financial respite to the worker and his family.
Frankly I find the conditions of unskilled labourers better in India, a developing country with a low per capita income. Qatar being a nation that is constantly punching way above its weight should have put in effort to make the lives of such workers easier considering it has enough money to do so. At least the authorities could do is to compensate for the loss of the human lives that happened in Qatar's pursuit of achieving status and fame and provide justice to the families by punishing the companies that overtly flout the already toothless labour laws.
Qatar instead of working to fix the situation is trying to silence any detractors or buy its way into garnering favourable positions on world bodies such as FIFA and IOC.
People around the world have started campaigns to spread awareness of this situation. People made anti-logos of those global brands, such as Coca Cola and SONY, that are going to sponsor the 2022 World Cup. I have added the link below with the other references if you want to see more.
This is why I, with a heavy heart, want FIFA to take away Qatar's right to host the World Cup if nothing is done to alleviate the condition of these workers.
See:
- Opinion: How illegal is passport confiscation in Qatar? - Doha News
- Foreign Workers Abused In Qatar, Report Says
- Arrested for reporting on Qatar's World Cup labourers - BBC News
- Chart: The Qatar World Cup Death Toll Is Stunning [Update]
- Terry Drinkwater provided me with more images of these camps Inside the Qatar 2022 World Cup slave camps: Squalor, fear and death for the workers building football theatres of dreams; The squalor Gulf dreams are made of
- Anti-logos made to protest the involvement of global brands in Qatar World Cup: People Make Anti-Logos To Urge Sponsors To Withdraw From Qatar 2022 World Cup
Edit:
1. Added the death toll seen till now. Also added the chart to compare the death tolls seen in Qatar with that seen for London and China Olympics . Finally, I also mentioned the probable cause of the deaths of the labourers.
2. Added info on Anti-logos made to protest the sponsorship of the World Cup by various global brands
3. The story from the Washington Post has been updated, mentioning that the deaths in Qatar as seen in the chart is the total migrant worker deaths in Qatar and not just deaths related to the World Cup. Thank you Archie D’Cruz for bringing this to my attention.
P.S: If you find this situation appalling and sympathize with the lives these workers have, I then respectfully ask you to spent few clicks and sign the below petition by Walk Free Foundation, an organization that is trying to end modern day slavery.
Edit: it seems few changes were made in the way the govt. handle the horrible labour situation. I have added the link to a comment with many references below for your perusal. It may seem the country willingly or grudgingly has nonetheless decided to reform the laws. Now we need to wait and see how successful is it in alleviating the conditions.
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