Qatar will more than double the number of migrant laborers in the nation to 2.5 million by 2020 ahead of hosting the FIFA World Cup, a senior royal family member said on Tuesday.
Sheikh Nasser bin Abdulrahman bin Nasser Al Thani told a business conference in Doha that the number of workers would reach “2.5 million within three to five years.”
It is estimated that there are anywhere between 700,000 and 1 million migrant workers in the tiny Gulf kingdom, out of a total population of 2.3 million.
The new arrivals will work on major projects in the run up to the World Cup being held in the nation in 2022.
Al Thani is the chairman of Daruna, a company that specializes in building migrant labor housing.
He was speaking at the “Qatar Projects” conference, a two-day event that brought together business leaders, consultants and government figures from the infrastructure, transport and energy sectors.
BETTER HOUSING
Al Thani also on Tuesday unveiled proposals for a new accommodation center for migrant laborers in Qatar, which he said would greatly improve housing standards.
“We are offering our guest workers a living standard of the highest Qatar has ever seen,” he said.
Qatar is spending more than US$200 billion over the next decade on a number of huge infrastructure projects, including a metro system for Doha, developing the nation’s roads and building a new port.
The city of Lusail, which will house the stadium where the World Cup final is to be played, is also being built and the nation’s main international airport, Hamad International, is being upgraded.
The increase in laborers flooding into Qatar is likely to reignite the issue of workers rights in the energy-rich nation.
Qatar has come under huge international pressure to improve conditions for laborers in the nation working on World Cup projects.
LABOR REFORMS
In recent weeks, Qatar has announced a major reform of the labor market to implement an electronic payment scheme, which should ensure thousands of workers are paid on time.
The change, long championed by rights groups, should mean workers get paid at least once a month and, in some cases, every two weeks, but campaigners have called on the Qatari government to do more, including addressing the controversial kafala sponsorship system, which enables employers to prevent foreign workers from leaving the nation or changing jobs, and has been likened to modern-day slavery.
Other areas where campaigners have called for change include the confiscation of passports by employers, workers not being issued an exit visa so they can leave Qatar and migrant laborers having to pay recruitment fees.
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