Qatar steps up violations against foreign workers

Ahmed Adel

Qatar is stepping up its violations against foreign nationals working in it, which at the end causes suffering to hundreds of thousands of people.

Among those suffering because of the Qatari practices are the workers constructing the tiny Gulf state’s 2022 World Cup facilities.

The Covid-19 outbreak has only come to compound the problems faced by the foreign workers in Qatar.

Report

The number of foreign workers dying from the coronavirus is on the rise, according to a report by Maat Foundation for Peace on December 6.

The report, which refers to internal memos at Qatari companies hiring foreign workers, adds that the Qatari government works hard to hide the number of workers dying from the disease for fear of a FIFA decision to withdraw the World Cup organization from Qatar.

Qatar only sends the remains of the dead workers back to their countries, the report says.

According to the report, foreigners make up 95% of labor in Doha.

Human rights groups say, meanwhile, that coronavirus infections are rife among the foreign workers in the absence of healthcare to them.

The workers are forced to stay in places that look like prison cells, the rights groups say.

They add that the Qatari government had deported a large number of workers in the past period, even without giving them their financial dues.

Testimonies

The report quotes the families of some of the workers who say their relatives in Qatar were the targets of repeated violations.

Some of the families said their relatives were deprived of healthcare and forced to live in places that do not have the minimum requirement for a healthy human life.