Kafala law in Qatar perpetuates a system of human trafficking, where Immigrants become a “commodity in a profit generating system.” In Qatar it is estimated that there are 1.8 million migrant workers, and 1,000 die every year.
That number could be as high as 7,000 by the time construction is completed on the 2022 FIFA World Cup center, a project that relies heavily on immigrant labour.
Labour brokers recruit immigrants in their home countries, charging them for things like visas and other identification, and promising them not only employment but better wages in Qatar. Kafala law requires that every immigrant have a sponsor. Without a sponsor you cannot work, and it is illegal to work for anyone who is not your sponsor. It is also illegal to leave the country without your sponsor’s permission. The problem with this is that many immigrants arrive, having acquired their visas- only to find out there is no job. If they find work there is little money. Sometimes they are not paid at all.
In 2014 the Guardian reported that workers from Nepal in Qatar died at a rate of one for every two days while working construction on the building that will host the 2022 FIFA World Cup. BBC reporters were arrested in 2015 for reporting on Qatar’s World Cup labourers. Amnesty International issued a press release on the subject of Qatar and migrant workers in March 2016 that detailed pieces of a 50-page report called “The Ugly Side of the Beautiful Game.” Geoffrey Smith responded to that press release in a piece he wrote for Fortune.
Sources:
Pessoa, Silvia, Laura Harkness, and Andrew M. Gardner, “Ethiopian Labor Migrants and the “Free Visa” System in Qatar” Human Organization. The Society for Applied Anthropology. Vol. 73, No. 3, 2014. Proquest.
Renekiewicz, Paula. “Sweat Makes the Green Grass Grow: The Precarious Future of Qatar’s Migrant Workers in the Run up to the 2022 Fifa World Cup Under the Kafala System and Recommendations for Effective Reform.” American University Law Review, 02/2016, Volume 65, Issue 3. 721-761
Smith, Geoffrey. “Another Report Damns Qatar’s Treatment of World Cup Workers.” Fortune. http://fortune.com/2016/03/31/qatar-world-cup-workers/
Student researcher: Kyrsten Stringer (University of Regina)
Faculty evaluator: Patricia Elliott (University of Regina)
“Project Censored is one of the organizations that we should listen to, to be assured that our newspapers and our broadcasting outlets are practicing thorough and ethical journalism.”