Qatar: The Dark Side of Migration - Spotlight on Qatar’s Construction Sector Ahead of the World Cup - Amnesty International Report

Qatar’s population is increasing by 20 people every hour. most of those arriving in the country are low-income construction workers from Asia. These migrant workers have been recruited to help build massive projects worth up to US$220 billion, as part of Qatar's drive to create a regional and global hub. Many of these projects will contribute, directly or indirectly, to the staging of the 2022 World cup. This Amnesty International report looks at how a permissive legal framework in Qatar allows unscrupulous employers to exploit and abuse migrant workers.

"They live under the same sky as we do." (Photo: Habeeb Mohammed Abu-Futtaim)

By Amnesty International

Introduction
Qatar’s population is growing at a truly staggering rate. Between August 2012 and August
2013 it grew by 10.5 per cent. Put another way, twenty new people are added to the
population every hour.3

This growth is driven primarily by the recruitment of low-paid migrant workers to support an
infrastructure development program that, according to some estimates, will amount to
more than US$220 billion over the coming decade. There are 1.38 million foreign nationals
working in Qatar, 94 per cent of the total workforce. The majority are from South and
Southeast Asia, and this number is expected to rise significantly in the coming years, with
one International Labour Organization (ILO) expert estimating that the country will need to
recruit one million extra migrant workers in the next decade. In the construction sector, the
vast majority of these workers are likely to be male.

Massive Construction Projects in Qatar: Migrants make up 94% of Qatar's workforce. (Photo: Jadi Jadi)

The scale of abuse
The abuses against migrant workers in the construction sector in Qatar are grim. Amnesty
International's research reveals widespread exploitation of migrant workers at the hands of
their employers. The abuse, which takes place against a backdrop of discriminatory attitudes
against many categories of migrant workers, includes:

• Workers arriving in Qatar to find that the terms and conditions of their work are different to those they had been promised during the recruitment process – including salaries being lower than promised;
  
• Workers having their pay withheld for months, or not being paid at all;
  
• Employers leaving workers "undocumented" and therefore at risk of being detained by the authorities;
  
• Migrant workers having their passports confiscated and being prevented from leaving the country by their employers;
  
• Workers being made to work excessive (sometimes extreme) hours and employers failing to protect workers’ health and safety adequately; and workers being housed in squalid accommodation.

View and/or Download the Report

The Report is also available in Arabic