Qatar has adopted important reforms to protect the rights of migrants workers, but weak implementation and ongoing violations reveal inherent problems in the country’s labour system. Recent reports by human rights groups point to persistent exploitation of workers as well as other human rights abuses, including arbitrary detention and deportation.
Abuses and Exploitation of Migrant Workers
Human rights organisations have repeatedly criticised Qatar’s labour system for systematically neglecting and violating the rights of migrant workers, who make the vast bulk of the country’s workforce. In a factsheet presented in the run up to Qatar’s 2024 review at the 47th Session of the UN Universal Periodic Review (UPR) in Geneva, Migrant-Rigths.org reports, “Migrants in Qatar constitute 94% of the labour market and 91% of the population. The majority of these workers hail from Asia and Africa and are employed in lower-income jobs in the construction, hospitality, and domestic work sectors.” According to Qatar’s Planning and Statistics Authority, in 2022, the domestic work sector employed 168,640 migrant workers, of whom 60 percent were women.
While Qatar has adopted important legal reforms regulating migrant labour, reports reveal that cases of abuse and exploitation of migrant workers have remained rampant. In a report from 2023, Human Rights Watch denounced that, six months after the end of the 2022 World Cup, Qatari authorities had failed to provide compensation for abuses, forms of exploitation, wage theft, and unexplained deaths of migrant workers. “Qatari authorities and FIFA leaders have repeatedly claimed that existing systems and policies in Qatar protected migrant workers from wage theft and other widespread abuses. But the evidence has once again exposed their misleading claims, which they shamelessly used to deflect criticism when the international spotlight was on Qatar,” said Michael Page, HRW’s deputy Middle East director.
More recently, Amnesty International and the Guardian interviewed numerous migrant workers in Qatar, who painted a damning picture of their working conditions. “The accommodation was dirty and 10 of us were sharing a room. We were made to work 10-hour shifts at construction sites building houses. We weren’t given any kind of protection, not even a helmet. It was hard and intense hands-on labour, in excessive heat,” said a Sri Lankan worker who had not received a salary for eight months and was deprived of basic food allowances and accommodation by his employer as retaliation for filing a labour complaint about his withheld wages.
Some interviewees said that they were forced to work seven days a week, and that their passports and ID cards were confiscated by employers, making them unable to leave their jobs unless they paid extortionate fees to buy their freedom. “I want to leave them for good and apply for a job in a country where I can have time off at the weekend. I’m so tired from working without a day off. I think about killing myself because I’m so stressed. Every day I cry because I feel so hungry and so tired,” said a Filipino domestic worker to the Guardian.
The European Centre for Democracy and Human Rights (ECDHR) has pointed to the lack of implementation of legal reforms. “Contrary to Qatar’s claims to be moving towards “full, inclusive, and accelerated” development, labour violations persist within Qatar’s migrant worker system. According to NGOs operating for the defence of human rights, there are persistent violations of foreign labour rights. Specifically, the challenges faced by migrant workers encompass recruitment fees, wage theft, insurmountable debt leading to shattered aspirations, and abuse by employers empowered by excessive authority, at times culminating in conditions tantamount to forced labour.”
Vulnerability to Detention and Deportation
Migrant-Rights.org, which is the Global Detention Project‘s principal partner in the Gulf region, advanced several recommendations in its submission to the Universal Periodic Review, to further advance the rights of migrant workers. “Despite significant reforms to labour and immigration laws, several human rights issues facing the majority of Qatar’s non-national residents persist,” says the organisation. Among those most vulnerable to detention and deportation are migrant domestic workers (MDWs). Migrant-Rights.org also highlighted, “The state does not have a law on domestic violence, and there are no avenues for justice for MDWs who are subject to such violence. MDWs who get pregnant out of wedlock, even if the result of rape, face detention and deportation.”
The group emphasised ongoing problems with the Kafala system, which has not been fully abolished and continues to facilitate systemic racism. Despite the abolition of the no-object certificate (NOC) to change jobs, a signed resignation letter enables employers to limit job mobility; unscrupulous employers still use the threat of absconding or false reports to exploit workers who complain; domestic workers are excluded from the labour law and are de facto unable to enjoy the right to change job at any point of contract because of the nature of their live-in employment and extreme isolation. Although exit permits were abolished in 2020, “Domestic workers must inform their employers of their intended departure 72 hours in advance, leaving them vulnerable to detention and deportation if their sponsor files a false absconding report to prevent them from leaving.”
Migrant-Rights.org recently reported that Qatar’s Shura Council has proposed reintroducing exit permits for domestic workers, threatening to undo key reforms. The group noted, “Women domestic workers are among the most at-risk and marginalised of all migrant workers in the GCC states, including Qatar. However, states and citizens resist expanding labour protections for them, as while domestic workers are seen as an essential part of the household, they are also considered a commodity that has been paid for.”
