How many lives did the construction of the World Cup stadiums in Qatar cost?
Since the World Cup was awarded to the Gulf state of Qatar, protests have been heard: the road to the football festival is said to have been paved with killed migrant workers. The exact numbers are disputed, but it is certain that the life of migrant workers in Qatar is hard. They are often at the mercy of their employer and many dozens of labor migrants die every year while working.
It has been rumored for some time that more than 6,500 victims have been killed during the rigging of the World Cup facilities. This number comes from a report in the British newspaper The Guardian that has taken on a life of its own. The newspaper reported that 6,750 migrant workers have died in Qatar since 2010. The figure indicated the total number of deaths among Asian migrants in the past 12 years. This calculation also includes deaths from other construction projects and in other sectors, and includes not only work-related deaths, but also illness and accidents outside of work. On the other hand, this study excludes deaths of migrants outside South Asia, such as residents of the Philippines and Sudan, who make up a significant part of the migrant community.
So probably not thousands of construction workers were killed during the stadium construction, but much more than the Qatari government claims.
Qatar speaks in a report of 37 deaths during the construction of the stadiums, three of whom are work-related. Although that statement was repeated by FIFA director Gianni Infantino, many believe it is an underestimate. The International Labor Organization (ILO) counted 50 dead and 500 seriously injured in 2020 alone. Nepal’s former ambassador told the French website: SoFoot that ‘one hundred to one hundred and fifty’ Nepalese die every year as a result of their work in Qatar.
The discussion is clouded as the Qataris fail to recognize heat stroke as a work-related cause of death. If someone dies from heat (heat can lead to kidney failure), the death certificate often simply says ‘cardiac arrest’. Autopsy is rarely done, really only when there was a crime or chronic illness.
To illustrate: of the total 1,678 deaths from India recorded between 2012 and 2018, 80 percent are said to have died a ‘natural’ death. Relatives are left stunned, because the person in question was usually perfectly healthy before departure. As a result of this system, they never find out what exactly happened. Nor do they have to count on compensation.
How many migrant workers are there in Qatar, and who are they?
The Qataris are a minority in their own country. Of the 3 million inhabitants, less than 400,000 people have a Qatari passport, which is a number comparable to the city of Utrecht. Nine out of ten people have a different nationality, the vast majority of whom are migrant workers. Most are male and come from India, Bangladesh and Nepal. Due to their presence, Qatar has twice as many men as women.
Migration has quadrupled the total population in the past twenty years: in 2003 there were only 700 thousand people living there. Becoming Qatari (including passport) is virtually impossible, which means that the migration is by definition temporary in nature. When your employment contract is over, you are usually expected to leave again. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicts that the population will gradually decline in the years following the tournament, reaching 2.5 million by 2027.
What does the life of a migrant worker look like?
That depends on whether they do skilled or ‘unskilled’ work. More than 1 million people work in construction, about 100 thousand in the household. But universities, advertising agencies, sports clubs, media and the police also rely on the presence of migrants.
For low-skilled work, workers usually earn about 270 euros per month, the legal minimum wage. The average Qatari earns many times that, the gross domestic product is more than 60 thousand euros per inhabitant. Part of the meager wages is often spent on repaying employment agencies or on loans they took out to pay for the trip. What they do not need for food and shelter is transferred to their families in their own country.
The UN Rapporteur on Racism described society in 2020 as a ‘quasi-caste system’, where your skin color largely determines how you are treated. It is known, for example, that migrants are often refused entry to parks and shopping centers. On set days they only welcome ‘families’, a category into which migrants as ‘single’ men do not fit.
Construction work is made more difficult by the high temperatures, especially in summer. Then the mercury can rise to above 45 degrees. Since 2018, it was forbidden to work outside in the summer between half past 12 and 3 in the afternoon. In 2021 this window will be extended to the hours between 10 am and 4.30 pm Those rules are by no means always followed: in August the Qatari Ministry of Labor found that 120 companies were working outside in the heat of the day.
What about the new legislation for the protection of migrant workers?
Qatar has amended some of its legislation under international pressure, but according to human rights organizations, enforcement is lacking and the old excesses (unpaid wages, exploitation) continue unabated.
Migrants in Qatar must have a ‘sponsor’. In the so-called kafala system, this is often their employer, who therefore has a lot of power. Until 2020, workers had to obtain permission from their employer to leave the country or switch employers. Yet that is still not easy. For example, a migrant who wants another job no longer needs to obtain approval from his or her employer, but still has to give permission from the competent ministry.
Employers are allowed to ban 5 percent of their workforce from leaving the country, and those who work in the household must notify departure plans three days in advance. Running away from work is considered a crime in Qatar, with the result that families can put significant pressure on their domestic workers. Amnesty International reports that they are often blackmailed with allegations of cheating or theft.