Two ILO reports unveiled on Tuesday indicate that the non-payment of wages is the “main complaint” of migrant workers in the emirate. Reports have doubled in one year, thanks to the launch in 2021 of an online complaint platform including an anonymous whistleblower channel.
We can see the cup half empty or half full. While non-payment of wages is the “main complaint” migrant workers to the Qatari Ministry of Labour, according to two reports from the International Labor Organization (ILO) unveiled on Tuesday, the number of complaints has “more than doubled” in one year thanks to the launch in 2021 of an online complaints platform including an anonymous reporting channel. Between October 2021 and October 2022, 34,425 complaints were filed.
Between 2018 and 2020, the host country of the 2022 World Cup, regularly criticized by international unions and NGOs for its breaches of human rights, in particular those of migrant workers, undertook sweeping reforms of its labor legislation. “Qatar has shown its determination to push forward its reform agenda”estimates the ILO, seized in 2014 of a complaint by international unions against Qatar and installed in the country since 2018.
Most “it is universally recognized that there remain challenges in its implementation, which is not surprising given the scale and pace of the reforms undertaken”, estimates the UN agency. In her reports 19 days before the start of the World Cup, she urges Qatar to “continue to work for the full respect of international labor standards”.
The post-World Cup in question
Among the remaining priorities, she points “the need to ensure that all workers and employers can benefit from labor mobility laws” from one employer to another. “Mechanisms for workers to lodge complaints and recover their wages must be strengthenedshe adds. And the rights of homeworkers must be better protected, including in terms of working time and rest..
While NGOs are worried about the abandonment of reforms after the 2022 World Cup (from November 20 to December 18), “the government has repeatedly said that the World Cup is not the finish line” and that these reforms were part of the emirate’s economic diversification program, based mainly on its significant natural gas resources, by 2030, notes the ILO.
The agency is currently based in Qatar until 2023 and “the government has officially and publicly requested that the ILO establish a more permanent presence in Doha”it is specified in these reports.