What Comes Next? Qatar has fallen under significant international scrutiny regarding its labour practices since being awarded the World Cup hosting rights, which has prompted moves by the government to address shortcomings in its legal system. Qatar has since made progress towards employment law reform, signing a number of new measures into effect in September 2020 that have included a minimum wage of $274 for all migrants; an attempt to address the delayed or non-payment of owed wages. The country has also become the second in the Gulf region to mandate a minimum wage for migrant workers, after Kuwait, and the first to allow migrant workers to change jobs before the end of their contracts without their employer’s consent, removing the need for NOCs as one of the most often abused tools in the kafala system. Systems have also been put in place to allow migrant workers to report labour complaints. However, challenges to an equitable system remain, as the International Organisation for Migration reported in 2022 that migrant workers may still be prohibited from joining trade unions. Qatar’s new avenues for reporting labour law violations are also inadequate for the reporting of sexual assault against female workers, which is made especially daunting by the country’s zina law forbidding extramarital sex. Fears of retaliation from employers have also limited the use of these channels. The kafala system has been baked into Qatar’s economy for more than 60 years and is not easily extricated. With the world watching for further news of repressive behavior by the government as the tournament continues, it remains to be seen how far the nation’s efforts to liberalise its employment protections will extend once it has concluded. SPECIAL FEATURE 37 To facilitate this rapid development, Qatar has recruited more than 30,000 migrant workers from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and other countries (this figure represents those who have been enlisted to work on stadium construction; the full number is unknown, but likely significantly larger). These migrants are technically subject to international treaties guaranteeing a standard of movement and welfare, but research by the Gulf Research Centre in 2018 found that “in practice, an expansive extralegal market dominates the entire migration process”. Migrants are often recruited in their home countries by subcontractors promising nonexistent jobs, then deprived of their travel documents and switched onto a new contract after arriving in the country, effectively placing them at the legal disposal of their employers. Equally alarming is the mortality rate of the workers engaged in infrastructure and development projects. Qatar has claimed that only 37 of its migrant workers have died since 2015, and only three for work-related reasons, but omitted the inclusion of workers building hotels, transit systems and other large-scale projects. Estimates from outside Qatar project that at least 6,750 South Asian migrant workers have died in Qatar since it was awarded World Cup hosting rights in 2010. The kafala system has been baked into Qatar’s economy for more than 60 years and is not easily extricated.
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