One yr in the past, issues have been wanting up for Shakir Ullah Khan. The World Cup in Qatar was about to kick off, and Khan had travelled from Pakistan to Qatar and had discovered a prestigious job as a safety guard on the match. “I used to be joyful to affix a giant organisation like Fifa,” says Khan. Nevertheless it didn’t final. “As soon as we began work … all my hopes turned to mud.”
The labour reforms put in place after the worldwide neighborhood condemned the exploitation and deaths among the many military of migrant employees who constructed Qatar’s World Cup dream, have been presupposed to be the legacy of the match. As a substitute, migrant employees in Qatar say that life isn’t any higher for these left behind.
The Qatari authorities and Fifa have claimed in any other case, saying that the occasion, described by the Fifa president Gianni Infantino because the best World Cup ever”.
A spokesperson for the Qatar authorities stated the occasion “accelerated labour reforms in Qatar, creating a major and lasting match legacy”. Employees now profit from a minimal wage, the liberty to vary jobs, a simplified complaints mechanism with simpler entry to justice, and improved well being and security requirements, the spokesperson stated, including: “One yr on from the World Cup, Qatar’s dedication to labour reform stays as sturdy as ever.”
The UN’s Worldwide Labour Group, which has been working in partnership with the Qatari authorities since 2018 to reform its labour system, is equally bullish. It says it has “witnessed continued dedication from, and cooperation with” the Qatari authorities because the World Cup.
Amnesty Worldwide launched a report on Thursday that tells a distinct story, claiming that progress on implementing Qatar’s new labour legal guidelines has stalled because the World Cup. Ella Knight, Amnesty Worldwide’s migrant labour rights researcher, says low-wage employees “nonetheless face large dangers of exploitation in the present day, together with of compelled labour, and the prospect of treatment and compensation for abuses is a faint hope for a lot of”.
Khan says that shortly earlier than the beginning of final yr’s match, he and lots of of different employees had been employed by a neighborhood non-public safety firm contracted to supply safety at quite a lot of key World Cup amenities. They understood they’d been employed for six months – and paperwork and contracts seen by the Guardian assist these claims – however simply days after the final, they were suddenly fired, with about three months left to work.
Once they tried to barter for his or her excellent wages at places of work linked to the corporate, lots of of employees have been detained or deported.
Khan and two colleagues have been charged with organising a gathering with out permission, sentenced to 6 months in jail and fined 10,000 rials (£2,205). Khan was launched in August. Certainly one of his colleagues was not freed till 1 November, having been detained for greater than 9 months.
As we speak, Khan continues to be in Qatar, struggling to resume his official paperwork, with out which he’s unable to work and even safely go away the overcrowded room he shares with six others. “Typically I don’t eat for one or two days as a result of I can’t work and I’ve no cash,” he says. “I can’t see any resolution.”
Wage theft (the non-payment of wages or advantages) continues to be “rampant” whereas options are “ineffective and insufficient” says Migrant-rights.org, which advocates for employees’ rights within the Gulf.
The ILO’s annual progress report, launched this week, reveals that previously yr, about 1.14bn rials (£250m) has been paid out to employees by a authorities fund set as much as cowl employees’ unpaid wages and assist firms struggling to pay their employees.
The assurances of the Qatari authorities sound hole to Saikou Colley, a youngster from the Gambia who additionally signed as much as work for a similar safety firm on the eve of the World Cup. Colley and two mates from residence paid native brokers large sums to return to Qatar, drawn by the “life-changing alternatives” provided by the match.
However like Khan, simply days after the ultimate, they have been all of the sudden left jobless and homeless. The three have been finally referred to a authorities shelter, which turned out to be extra “like a jail”.
after newsletter promotion
A year later, Colley is still in Qatar, fighting for compensation through the courts, and worrying about his family back home.
In August, despite having no legal representation, the teenagers won their cases and Colley was awarded 21,000 rials (£4,640) to cover his unpaid wages and the cost of his flight home. His sponsor has appealed against the judgment so he remains trapped, desperate to go home but unwilling to give up on his compensation.
“I blame Fifa and the Qatari government. If they had stood by their words and imposed penalties on those that violate basic human rights, we wouldn’t have got to this place,” says Colley.
Fifa earned a record $7.5bn (£4.6bn) in the four-year cycle leading up to the Qatar World Cup, but it has yet to announce the results of a review, launched at the Fifa Congress in March, into whether the steps it has taken to provide remedy to workers who suffered abuses linked to the tournament are in line with its human rights commitments.
For workers such as Colley, that cannot come soon enough. Earlier this week, he returned to court to pursue his compensation, only to learn that a decision was once again postponed. “If we had known [how long it would take] we wouldn’t have stayed as a result of there is no such thing as a future right here in Qatar,” says Colley. “There’s solely ache and struggling.”
Fifa didn’t reply to a request for remark.
