Major sponsors Visa and Coca-Cola on Wednesday pressed FIFA to help improve labor conditions in Qatar as Amnesty International accused the 2022 World Cup host of failing to deliver on promised reforms for migrant workers.
“We continue to be troubled by the reports coming out of Qatar related to the World Cup and migrant worker conditions,” credit card giant Visa said, adding that it had expressed its “grave concern” directly to soccer’s top body.
Coke said it was also pressing FIFA to demand more labor reforms from Qatar, after fresh accusations from rights group Amnesty that laborers in the tiny oil-rich country were dying in their hundreds.
Photo: AP
“We expect FIFA to continue taking these matters seriously and to work toward further progress,” the company said.
Their statements, which come after similar criticism from sponsor Adidas, are the strongest indication yet that high-profile commercial backers are becoming increasingly uneasy over the treatment of migrant workers in Qatar.
FIFA is due to hold a meeting later this month that could see a resolution put forward to remove the World Cup from the country — the first ever awarded to the Middle East — because of the slow pace of labor reforms.
World soccer’s governing body said it would continue “to urge the Qatari authorities to accomplish reforms.”
“FIFA has repeatedly urged publicly and with the highest authorities in Qatar that fair working conditions for all workers in Qatar are imperative,” it said.
However, Amnesty warned that “without prompt action, the pledges Qatar made last year are at serious risk of being dismissed as a mere public relations stunt to ensure the Gulf state can cling on” to the event.
In the latest of a string of reports on migrant worker “abuse,” the rights group said Doha had failed to deliver reforms in key areas, such as pay, the kafala system that blocks workers from leaving the country and curbs on changing employers.
About 440 migrant workers from India and Nepal — the two countries with the largest number of migrants working on World Cup projects — died last year, Amnesty said, citing their governments’ figures, but without detailing how they were killed.
“Qatar is failing migrant workers,” Amnesty Gulf migrants researcher Mustafa Qadri said. “Last year, the government made promises to improve migrant labor rights in Qatar, but in practice, there have been no significant advances.
“The lack of a clear roadmap of targets and benchmarks for reform leaves serious doubts about Qatar’s commitment to tackling migrant labor abuse,” he said.
The release of Amnesty’s report, Promising little, delivering less: Qatar and migrant labour abuse ahead of the 2022 Football World Cup, caps a turbulent week for Doha.
On Monday, it emerged that a BBC journalist invited to Qatar to examine the living conditions of workers building infrastructure for the World Cup had been arrested and held without charge.
Qatar has been repeatedly criticized for the poor working conditions of as many as 1 million migrant workers in the small, oil-rich Gulf country.
Facing searing international condemnation, Doha pledged in May last year to reform some of its more contentious labor laws, but has so far failed to live up to its promises.
Earlier this month, Abdullah bin Saleh al-Khulaifi, the minister of labor and social affairs, said he was “90 percent” certain the kafala system would be replaced by the end of the year.
He added that the wage protection system would be up and running by mid-August, as well as improvements to workers’ accommodation.
However, Amnesty said that with the number of migrant workers in the country expected to more than double, reforms to labor conditions were becoming increasingly vital.
Amnesty listed nine “fundamental” areas for reform and said Doha has managed only “limited progress” in five, and none at all in four.
It criticized Qatar for not meeting a target of having 300 labor inspectors in place by the end of last year and for the slow introduction of an electronic wage protection system.
“With Qatar’s construction boom continuing and the migrant worker population set to expand to 2.5 million, the need for urgent reform is more pressing than ever,” Qadri said.
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