More than 900 Nepalese/Indian workers already dead in Qatar World Cup preparation: Toll could reach 4,000

[Jetsfan80]

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/feb/16/qatar-world-cup-400-deaths-nepalese

 

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/18/qatar-world-cup-india-migrant-worker-deaths

 

 

Qatar World Cup: 400 Nepalese die on nation's building sites since bid won

 

Calls grow for Fifa to take decisive action as human-rights group prepares to release report on mounting death toll

• Jamie Doward
•  
• The Observer, Saturday 15 February 2014 18.21 EST

Migrant workers queue up for buses back to their accommodation, at the end of construction shifts in Qatar. Photograph: EPA

 

 

More than 400 Nepalese migrant workers have died on Qatar's building sites as the Gulf state prepares to host the World Cup in 2022, a report will reveal this week.

 

The grim statistic comes from the Pravasi Nepali Co-ordination Committee, a respected human rights organisation which compiles lists of the dead using official sources in Doha. It will pile new pressure on the Qatari authorities – and on football's world governing body, Fifa – to curb a mounting death toll that some are warning could hit 4,000 by the time the 2022 finals take place.

 

It also raises the question of how many migrant workers in total have died on construction sites since Qatar won the bid in 2010. Nepalese workers comprise 20% of Qatar's migrant workforce, and many others are drafted in from countries such as India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

 

A focus on the Nepalese deaths has seen Fifa and Qatar battling a PR crisis that threatens to cast a long shadow over the event. Last week, appearing before EU officials, Theo Zwanziger, a senior Fifa executive who has publicly criticised the decision to award the tournament to Qatar, pledged that his organisation would be carrying out "on-the-spot visits" to ensure that workers' rights were being respected.

But the promise is unlikely to reassure human rights organisations and labour groups, which have raised repeated concerns about Qatar's kafala employment system, under which migrant workers are tied to their "sponsor" employers.

 

Qatar's World Cup authorities recently issued detailed guidelines that they hope will address concerns about their employment laws. The 50-page report, Workers' Welfare Standards, provides a breakdown of the guidelines that 2022 organisers expect contractors and sub-contractors to observe. But this has not stopped the death toll rising, nor continuing international criticism.

 

Jim Murphy, Labour's shadow international development minister,, who is expected to visit Qatar soon, raised the issue again this week. Writing in the Guardian, Murphy said: "People don't have to die to bring us this or any other World Cup or sporting event; not a single worker died building the sites for the London 2012 Olympics. According to the International TUC, the 2022 World Cup risks 4,000 lives."

 

The continued criticism will prove embarrassing for Qatar as it prepares for a visit from Prince Charles.

 

The symbolic total of 400 deaths, which the Observer understands will be confirmed in the next few days, will also invite questions not only about working conditions on sites but also about the treatment of construction workers.

 

The Observer has learned of the horrific case of Noka Bir Moktan, a 23-year-old who was said to have died of "sudden cardiac arrest" in October 2013, although photos of his corpse show he suffered a collapsed chest, apparently consistent with ill-treatment.

 

Moktan's family come from a poor village in Nepal's remote hill district of Ilam. His elderly father borrowed 175,000 rupees (about £1,000) to pay for his passage and agency fees to Qatar, in the hope that he would be able to send some of his earnings home. The money, was borrowed from a loan shark and was supposed to be reimbursed by Moktan's Qatari employer, but this did not happen. The family now fear that the loan shark will demand that Moktan's two sisters, aged 14 and 16, who were collateral for the loan, be sent to work in brothels in Mumbai to pay off the debt.

 

Moktan's tragic case is far from untypical. Last November, Amnesty International issued a report warning that many workers were complaining about poor health and safety standards, including some who said they were not issued with helmets on sites. A representative of Doha's main hospital stated that more than 1,000 people were admitted to its trauma unit in 2012 having fallen from heights at work.

 

Researchers also found migrant workers living in squalid, overcrowded accommodation with no air-conditioning and overflowing sewage. Several camps lacked power and researchers found one large group of men living without running water.

 

"It is simply inexcusable in one of the richest countries in the world that so many migrant workers are being ruthlessly exploited, deprived of their pay and left struggling to survive," Salil Shetty, secretary general of Amnesty International, said at the time the report was published.

Some have gone as far as to call for Qatar to lose its right to host the tournament. But Zwanziger said such a move would be "counterproductive". He told the European parliament sub-committee on human rights that "it would simply mean that the spotlight would be put away from them".

 

• The headline, caption and introduction to this article were amended on 16 Feb 2014 to make it clear that 400 Nepalese workers have died on construction sites across Qatar, not just on World Cup sites

 

 

More than 500 Indian workers have died in Qatar since 2012, figures show

 

As Qatar construction boom gathers pace ahead of 2022 World Cup, Indian government confirms scale of death toll

• Owen Gibson, chief sports correspondent
• The Guardian, Tuesday 18 February 2014 12.33 EST

Link to video: Qatar: the migrant workers forced to work for no pay in World Cup host country

 

More than 500 Indian migrant workers have died in Qatar since January 2012, revealing for the first time the shocking scale of death toll among those building the infrastructure for the 2022 World Cup.

 

Official figures confirmed by the Indian embassy in Doha reveal that 237 Indians working in Qatar died in 2012 and 241 in 2013. A further 24 Indians have died in January 2014.

 

These come after the Guardian revealed last month that 185 Nepalese workers had died in Qatar in 2013, taking the total from that country to at least 382 over two years.

 

Human rights groups and politicians said the figures meant Fifa could not "look the other way", and should be leading demands for Qatar to improve conditions for the estimated 1.2 million migrant workers fuelling a huge construction boom.

 

The figures from the Indian embassy show that 233 Indian migrants died in 2010 and 239 in 2011, taking the total over four years to 974. Since the World Cup was awarded to Qatar in December 2010, there have been 717 recorded Indian deaths.

 

However, the Indian embassy did not provide further details on who those individuals were, their cause of death or where they worked. But analysis of the lists of dead Nepalese workers showed that more than two-thirds died of sudden heart failure or workplace accidents.

 

Qatar's ministry of labour and social affairs told the Guardian: "With specific regard to these new figures, we were aware that local media had previously reported some of these headline numbers, and we are clarifying them. Clearly any one death in Qatar or anywhere else is one death too many – for the workers, for their families, but also for Qataris who welcome guest workers to our country to perform valuable jobs. We are working to understand the causes of these deaths – as these statistics could include a range of circumstances including natural causes, and road safety incidents, as well as a smaller number of workplace incidents."

 

Nicholas McGeehan, a Gulf researcher for Human Rights Watch, said: "These figures for Indian deaths are a horrendous confirmation that it isn't just Nepalese workers who are dying in Qatar."

 

Jim Murphy, the shadow international development secretary, said: "Preparations for the 2022 World Cup cannot go on like this – the trickle of worrying reports from the construction sites of Qatar has become a torrent.

 

"Some of the practices we know are taking place in Qatar amount to forced labour, and there are widespread concerns that the death toll could reach well into the thousands if nothing is done."

 

Last week, a hearing at the European parliament heard from human rights groups, Fifa and other interested parties after a resolution was passed last year calling for action on the issue as construction of 2022 World Cup venues begins in earnest.

 

Despite the Qatar 2022 organising committee implementing a new charter relating to construction on its stadiums and the ministry of labour highlighting an expanded inspection programme, human rights groups and trade unions have repeated their call for structural change in the face of hundreds of deaths.

 

In November, Amnesty warned in a damning report that workers were enduring 12-hour days in sweltering conditions and living in squalid, overcrowded accommodation.

 

The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) has warned that up to 4,000 workers may die before a ball is kicked in 2022 without meaningful reform of the kafala system, which ties workers to their employers, and stringent control of the myriad construction companies and subcontractors involved.

 

The ITUC, which has campaigned consistently for better rights for migrant workers across the Gulf, has called the publication of the charter a sham because it does not deal with structural problems created by the kafala system.

 

Many workers arrive in Qatar already heavily in debt, having paid huge sums to middle men to secure contracts in the fast growing Gulf state.

A senior executive at one of Qatar's largest banks told a conference in Bahrain last month that the Gulf state would spend £123bn on infrastructure projects in the next four years alone. The hosting of the World Cup is an integral part of Qatar's unprecedented 2030 National Vision building project.

 

There are an estimated 1.2 million migrant workers in Qatar. Those from India make up 22% of the total, with a similar proportion from Pakistan. Around 16% are from Nepal, 13% from Iran, 11% from the Philippines, 8% from Egypt and 8% from Sri Lanka.

 

The Qatar World Cup organisers believe that by holding their own contractors to higher standards they can create momentum for change and that improved rights for workers could be one legacy benefit of hosting the tournament.

 

The ministry of foreign affairs has also emphasised that it is stepping up efforts to hold contractors to existing labour laws, sanctioning 2,000 companies in 2013 and a further 500 in January 2014 alone.

 

The statement from the Qatari ministry of labour and social affairs added: "Where any liability is found to rest with employers, the ministry …and Qatari law authorities will pursue these cases through the relevant legal channels. We have increased the number of trained labour inspectors by 25%, and continue to hire new inspectors, with over 11,500 random spot-checks of workplaces carried out in the past three months.

 

This, in order to enforce our existing labour laws, with the aim of the prevention of any further workplace incidents."

 

Law firm DLA Piper has been engaged to prepare a report on all issues surrounding Qatar's use of migrant labour, which is expected to be published next month.

 

But human rights groups have maintained that Qatar must prove it is serious about reforming its labour laws. Amnesty's James Lynch, who wrote last year's report, called on the Qatari and Indian authorities to provide more detail on the circumstances of the deaths.

 

"This issue is not restricted to one country of origin," said Lynch. "It is critical that the Qatari government works urgently with the governments of migrant workers' countries of origin to investigate the main causes of migrant workers' deaths and develops a transparent plan to address these, particularly where deaths relate to industrial accidents, work conditions and access to healthcare."

 

Fifa has asked Qatar to provide evidence of meaningful progress in reforming labour law but the president of world football's governing body, Sepp Blatter, has said its status as hosts is not under threat.

 

Murphy, who will travel to Nepal and Qatar in the coming weeks, said: "Fifa cannot simply look the other way. Football's governing body should be leading demands for change, not dragging its feet."

[AVM]

It's incredibly depressing that I'm not even surprised by this.

[JetsFanInDenver]

Qatar is where human rights go to die!

[The Crusher]

Jus heard Qatar is throwing their hat in the ring for Micahel Vick. Bout to get interesting.

[BroadwayJoe12]

FIFA is one of the more corrupt major sport governing bodies, and that's saying something. Don't really care what Jack Warner says, Qatar's world cup bid was always ridiculous. This isn't even shocking in the least, still terrible though.

[Jetsfan80]

If nothing changes, about as many people will die as 9/11. Yet no one cares. It's really sad.

[kelticwizard]

If nothing changes, about as many people will die as 9/11. Yet no one cares. It's really sad.

 

That's true.  I never heard of it until seeing it here.

 

PS:  Qatar is not even a poor country.  It is first in the world in Gross Domestic Product per capita!

[SayNoToDMC]

I wish I had a job on FIFA's selection or oversight commitee

[BroadwayJoe12]

I wish I had a job on FIFA's selection or oversight commitee

 

Seriously.  Those f*ckers would be playing in Abu Dhabi and Saudia Arabia every other year on rotate. "I dunno guys, they just made really convincing arguments..." ~ as I sit between 20 beautiful women atop my pile of money.

[SayNoToDMC]

Seriously. Those f*ckers would be playing in Abu Dhabi and Saudia Arabia every other year on rotate. "I dunno guys, they just made really convincing arguments..." ~ as I sit between 20 beautiful women atop my pile of money.

Picturing how theyll spend $200 billion dollar's on infrastructure is hilarious. Trickle down economics at its best, same 5 rich Arab guys pushing money back and forth around a table.

[BroadwayJoe12]

Picturing how theyll spend $200 billion dollar's on infrastructure is hilarious. Trickle down economics at its best, same 5 rich Arab guys pushing money back and forth around a table.

 

 

My Dad used to do a lot of business in Dubai and he told a story where he attended a dinner party and I forget which car it was, but say there were only 100 released in the world within the last few months, over a dozen of them were all parked in the lot. He said you couldn't fathom how much money some of those families have.  

[JerryK]

And they're all dying for *soccer*.

That's like dying for the accordion.