Qatar migrant workers 'treated like animals' - Amnesty International
12 replies, posted
[URL]http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-24980013[/URL]
[QUOTE]Qatar's construction sector is rife with abuse, Amnesty International (AI) has said in a report published as work begins on Fifa World Cup 2022 stadiums.Amnesty says migrant workers are often subjected to non-payment of wages, dangerous working conditions and squalid accommodation.
The rights group said one manager had referred to workers as "animals".
Qatari officials have said conditions will be suitable for those involved in construction of World Cup facilities.
It has not yet commented on the latest report.[/QUOTE]It's slavery in all but name, especially considering it's common practice to confiscate passports and deny exit to workers, withhold payment or severely reduce it.
This report from HRW is long, but worth at least skimming through.
[url]http://www.hrw.org/reports/2012/06/12/building-better-world-cup-0[/url]
This has been going on for years. I watched a documentary about workers like this that build shit in Dubai some time back, the conditions are terrible.
They might as well be living in the stone age because they stuff like 16 workers to a tiny room, have no working bathroom/wash facilities and force the workers to work insane shifts with no breaks (like 18 hours.)
And another thing is that it's illegal to be in debt. In that same documentary it documented some American workers that went over there to work, but suddenly lost their jobs and became insolvent. The husband was thrown in jail for like 5 years and the wife was relegated to living in their car in parking lots because their passports were taken and had no way to make money.
We have tons of slave labour still. It just looks alot cleaner on paper.
Wow its almost like countries governed by absolute monarchies have little regard for people who aren't in power
I read about this a while ago in the dutch newspapers.
Even football stars are subjected to this. No pay for 6 months yet you can't leave...
[QUOTE=GiGaBiTe;42901104]This has been going on for years. I watched a documentary about workers like this that build shit in Dubai some time back, the conditions are terrible.
They might as well be living in the stone age because they stuff like 16 workers to a tiny room, have no working bathroom/wash facilities and force the workers to work insane shifts with no breaks (like 18 hours.)
And another thing is that it's illegal to be in debt. In that same documentary it documented some American workers that went over there to work, but suddenly lost their jobs and became insolvent. The husband was thrown in jail for like 5 years and the wife was relegated to living in their car in parking lots because their passports were taken and had no way to make money.[/QUOTE]
Lived in Dubai for over 18 years of my life, been to Sonapur - the workers camp you described. It's a living horror nobody should have to put up with. The sewage flows likea. River there out of the toilets, to get to some of the "houses" (essentially very shitty quality nissen huts) you need to hop on these stepping stones through the rivers of poo and piss. The stench is overwhelming.
On top of that, they don't have running water for the most part. Fuck that, they eat their meals on old newspaper, because they don't have any cutlery or crockery there. In the winters these guys used to wrap themselves up in garbage bags or plastic bags to keep away from the cold nights.
Being in these camps is a living nightmare for a lot of these people, but they do it all so that they can send some money and improve the lot of their children and their family back in their home countries. I've seen some horrific shit happen to these people - if people really knew what went on there, they'd be terrified of how it's been allowed to go on for so long.
My father went out to the Emirates for a big IT project for a couple of years once. He only got back just after I finished my school finals. He told me pretty much the exact same situation existed in most such countries, and Qatar in particular. This has been ongoing for years now, and is slowly getting worse.
Just because people are on the margins of society and are only capable of unskilled or semiskilled work doesn't mean you can treat them like pond scum. They have the right to lead dignified lives as much as you or I do. Sometimes I wonder whether or not mankind will ever quit being scummy to one another for the flimsiest reasons, but one must live in hope because that's all we've got.
Lived there for a year-and-a-bit. Also Dubai.
Yeh, about as bad as you'd expect, but they still get paid 3 times as much as they would in their native countries so I'd say that's where the real problem lays.
[QUOTE=Zonesylvania;42901430]Sometimes I wonder whether or not mankind will ever quit being scummy to one another for the flimsiest reasons..[/QUOTE]
And we never will. IT's basic human nature to benefit from other's misfortune, even to cause said misfortune, and that's not going to go away until there's only 5-6 of us left.
Reminds me of the VICE documentary about workers in the Dubai. Seems all of the oil rich cities and countries in the region share this practice.
[QUOTE=Rangergxi;42902961]Reminds me of the VICE documentary about workers in the Dubai. Seems all of the oil rich cities and countries in the region share this practice.[/QUOTE]
Well, yeah - it's unlikely to change though, as long as the oil keeps flowing. When that runs out and they face a financial crunch, people are (naturally) going to drop what they're doing and go home, leaving these guys with the jobs they thought were beneath them. To an extent it's already happening - a lot of Indian workers have heard of the horror stories of what goes on in these places and prefer to stay in their home country to work for shit wages, because at least they don't run the risk of not being paid for several months of end and ultimately dying in a foreign land.
People can argue that Qatar (and for that matter, a lot of the countries in ME) need a lesson in worker's rights. But above all else, they need a crash course on learning the decency of treating every human being as an equal, regardless of which country they hail from. It's the kind of behaviour and environment which comes across as a sick parody going back to pre-desegregation era America - if you, as an Indian/Bangladeshi/Pakistani/Philippino/Indonesian were involved in an accident with, say, a Qatari, even if it was the Qatari guys fault, the policeman would still blame you for it.
If they fail to even do this, then it is unlikely they can make any progress on improving the life of their workers.
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