HRW slams Qatar’s failure to protect 800k foreign workers from extreme heat
Human Rights Watch criticized the failure to host Qatar to host the 2022 World Cup to protect 800,000 foreign construction workers from extremely high temperatures in the country and called for investigations into the high number of deaths among workers due to extreme heat.
“The failure of the Qatari authorities to provide basic protection from the heat, their decision to ignore recommendations made in the deaths of workers, and their refusal to release data on these deaths constitute a deliberate abandonment of responsibility,” Human Rights Watch said in its report. Report Wednesday.
The report’s author Nicolas McGuin called on FIFA, national associations and World Cup sponsors to seek more protection from heat and humidity for workers working in Qatar.
Qatar has introduced laws banning outdoor work between 11:30 am and 3:00 pm from June 15 to August 31, where temperatures can reach about 50 degrees Celsius, but Human Rights Watch says such measures do not Meet workers’ protection from hard labor. Circumstances.
The new Human Rights Watch report stressed that Doha should be more transparent on the issue of worker deaths and urged relevant national and international bodies to ask for answers “two simple questions: how many workers have died since 2012 and how they died?”
Of the 520 deaths that were provided in 2012 to workers from Bangladesh, India and Nepal, 385 or 74 percent were “unexplained or investigated,” the report said.
Qatar has always been criticized for reports of horrific working conditions for foreign workers working in the country
In December 2016, the Qatari government replaced the notorious sponsorship system in the country, which forced foreign workers to seek employer approval to change jobs or leave the country – a practice rights groups say leaves workers open to exploitation.
Despite the reforms, activists say Qatar continues to refuse to allow dozens of migrants from countries such as India, Nepal and Bangladesh to return home.
Trade unionists and activists say migrant workers still need exit permits from the government and that more than a quarter of the permits submitted by migrants have been rejected since reforms were introduced