Migrant workers employed on infrastructure projects in Qatar in the run-up to the 2022 World Cup are being treated like slave labour, according to unions.
These allegations were made at a news conference in London hosted by pressure group #NewFifaNow, which has joined forces with international unions to condemn Qatar’s treatment of migrant workers and lobby Fifa sponsors to “accept their corporate responsibility”.
Footage was released showing the living conditions of some of these workers, which #NewFifaNow described as “squalid”. It shows Jaimie Fuller, chairman of sportwear company Skins and a campaigner for better working conditions, in Qatar in April.
Sharan Burrow, general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation, said: “Qatar is a slave state. The discrimination, the racism, the denial of rights for 1.4 million migrant workers adds up to apartheid and a model of employment that is simply slavery.
“There is a conspiracy of silence by governments and major sporting and cultural institutions that allow it to continue. The world must not be duped by Qatar’s empty promises of reform.”
Fifa said in a statement: “Fifa has repeatedly urged the Qatari authorities to ensure decent conditions for migrant workers in the country.
“There have been significant improvements and these efforts are ongoing, but everyone recognises that more needs to be done and we continue to pursue this both with the local authorities and by working with international organisations.”
Grim footage of Qatar World Cup workers’ living conditions shown at #NewFifaNow press conf.
— Keme Nzerem (@kemenzerem) May 18, 2015
The BBC reported on Monday that a team filming in Qatar on an organised media trip had been arrested and spent two nights in prison.
Last week, Qatar said conditions were improving for migrants working on infrastructure projects, four years after the Gulf state was awarded the 2022 World Cup.
Qatar says 194 Nepalese people died in Qatar in 2014. It has not explained how they died.
Nepal says 65 of its nationals died as a result of cardiac arrest, while 30 were killed in workplace accidents. The migrants had been working long shifts in very hot temperatures.
A 2013 report by the law firm DLA Piper, whose recommendations Qatar agreed to accept, said 964 workers from Nepal, India and Bangladesh died in Qatar in 2012-13.
Qatar has pledged to change its kafala system, which keeps workers contractually committed to their employers.
There are an estimated 1.4 million migrant workers in Qatar, 400,000 of them Nepalese.
Fifa, world football’s governing body, has been criticised for awarding the World Cup to Qatar because of the intense heat in the summer. As a result, Fifa announced in March that the competition will be moved to November and December, when it is cooler.