Rights groups urged South Asian governments yesterdays to demand proper protection for their migrant workers amid outrage over the deaths of dozens of Nepalis on projects linked to the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
While Nepal’s government said it would not try to halt the flow of migrant workers after a newspaper investigation into their conditions, activists said the blame should not only rest with employers in the Gulf. Millions of people from impoverished parts of the subcontinent work in Gulf states such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia, sending home remittances that are crucial to their families’ welfare and to their nation’s finances.
Qatar alone is home to about 300,000 Nepalese workers, according to government figures, most of whom are drawn from impoverished rural areas.
The vast majority are working on construction projects and are hired by Nepal-based employment agencies that operate under licence from the government and are meant to adhere to regulations on working conditions.
Buddhi Bahadur Khadka, a spokesman for the labor ministry in Kathmandu, said Nepalese officials based in the embassy in Doha did vet employers to ensure they follow “standard guidelines,” but admitted there were problems.
“Despite our efforts, there have been irregularities. That needs to be changed and we are trying our best,” he said.
An investigation published by Britain’s Guardian newspaper this week found that 44 Nepalese migrants had died during the summer in Qatar when temperatures can reach around 50°C.
It detailed how some had not been paid for months, were denied drinking water and had their passports confiscated as they toiled on a range of infrastructure projects being readied for when Qatar hosts soccer fans from around the world.
Suhas Chakma, director of the Asian Centre for Human Rights, said governments on the subcontinent had too often turned a blind eye to the “horrendous” conditions that he said frequently breached international agreements.
“It is unfortunate that the governments of the sending countries are taking no action vis-a-vis compliance with the UN convention on migrant laborers,” Chakma said.
“This issue does not concern only Nepal. There are thousands of laborers from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh who are travelling abroad for work,” he said.
“It is time the SAARC [South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation] countries frame a policy for protection of their laborers from abuse and exploitation,” he added in reference to the eight-nation regional bloc headquartered in Kathmandu.
“Nepalese workers have been dying due to abusive labor conditions for years but it is only being talked about now because of the World Cup,” he said.
Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch, agreed it should not be just left up to the host country to treat workers properly.
“South Asian countries, which are a large group of senders, should work together to set minimum standards,” Ganguly said. “Since remittances are a big part of the South Asian economy, the SAARC countries should join together to demand better worker protections.”
Khadka said that Qatari government officials had pledged that migrants would be protected when they held talks with officials from Nepal’s labor ministry and foreign ministry in June.
“They assured us that their government will take action against the companies that violate the labourers’ rights, but the workers had to lodge complaints detailing the exploitation and the violation of labor rights,” he said.
“So, it’s up to the Qatar government to safeguard our workers and we have our embassy to monitor it,” Khadka said.
Nepal received 430 billion rupees (US$434 million) sent back by its roughly 1 million migrant workers last year, according to Nepal’s central bank, accounting for 22 percent of GDP in a country where around one in three young people are out of work.
“We won’t stop sending the workers just because their exploitation has been highlighted now. We can’t stop it because that’s the only major employment opportunity for the majority of Nepali youths,” Khadka said.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion