The following response is attributable to a Qatari government official:
Abolishing Kafala and introducing reforms
Over the last decade, Qatar has done more than any other country in the region to strengthen the rights of foreign workers. Hundreds of thousands of workers have benefitted from Qatar’s actions made in consultation with international experts including the ILO, trade unions and NGOs.
Reforms include a new national minimum wage, the removal of exit permits, the removal of barriers to change jobs, stricter oversight of recruitment, better accommodation, and improved health and safety standards including mandatory annual health checks. Qatar has also worked with labour-sending governments to tackle exploitative practices before workers arrive in Qatar.
The proof is in the numbers – 96 percent of eligible workers are now covered by Qatar’s Wage Protection System, which ensures salaries are paid electronically in full and on time. 246,168 successfully changed jobs between October 2020 and December 2021 following the removal of the NOC requirement. More than 300,000 employment contracts have been amended to comply with the new non-discriminatory minimum wage. And over QAR 600m (€165m) has been disbursed in the past two years via the Workers’ Support and Insurance Fund to cover salaries when employers have been unable to pay.
Qatar has also extended the legal restrictions on summer working hours in outdoor spaces from 1 June to 15 September, further providing workers with greater protection from heat stress, while strict measures to prevent passport confiscation include fines of up to QAR 25,000 per case.
Enforcement
In conjunction with the reforms, Qatar has taken major steps to increase its enforcement capacity. Working in cooperation with international partners, the government has introduced stricter punishments for violators and made it more difficult for unscrupulous employers to break the law.
Qatar has strengthened the capacity of its labour inspectors who carry out thousands of inspections each year at work and accommodation sites across the country. In 2021, the Ministry of Labour carried out a total of 39,880 inspections. Violations of the law are recorded, and penalties are handed down through the courts.
The number of rule-breaking companies has and will continue to decline as enforcement measures take hold and compliance increases among employers. Individual cases of wrongdoing are dealt with immediately, but these cases do not represent an underlying fault with the reforms that have been introduced.
Mortality statistics
The Guardian article has attracted significant attention, but the reporting is inaccurate. Every death is a tragedy, and the health and wellbeing of Qatar’s population is our highest priority. A recent study by the International Labour Organization (ILO) recorded 50 work-related deaths across the entire country in 2020 – a fraction of the figure reported in the media.
Unfortunately, of the millions of foreign nationals who have lived in Qatar over the past 10 years, a small number have died due to age, illness, or injury. The media reports claim that every person who passed away in Qatar from India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nepal was employed as a construction worker on World Cup stadiums and infrastructure. This is not true.
Qatar has a community of over 1.4 million expatriates from these countries. Only 20 percent are employed as construction workers, which accounted for fewer than 10 percent of all fatalities between 2014 and 2019. Foreign nationals from these countries work in a wide range of jobs, from law, accountancy, and other professional service industries, through the media and education, to hospitality and retail, in addition to manual labour.
Taken out of context, the Guardian figures have been used to create sensationalist headlines. There has been a consistent decline in Qatar’s mortality rate because of our region-leading health and safety programmes.