http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/m ... oll-report
The Guardian wrote:A long-awaited independent report commissioned by the Qatari government in the wake of a series of revelations about the death toll among migrant workers is due to be published by the end of the week.
Representatives from the human rights subcommittee of the European parliament are in Doha this week to investigate the issue and have been told to expect significant changes to the labour laws in response to a wave of international criticism.
But it remains to be seen whether the reforms will go far enough for the human rights groups and trade unions that have been calling for wholesale changes to the kefala system that ties migrant workers to employers and forbids them from leaving the country without permission.
After the Guardian revealed that dozens of Nepalese workers were dying in Qatar, and many others were heavily indebted and effectively trapped, the country's labour ministry appointed DLA Piper to "independently review all the claims made".
It immediately had to deny claims that the independence of the report could be undermined because DLA Piper was also a paid lobbyist for Qatari news network al-Jazeera.
The Guardian subsequently revealed that more than 380 Nepalese workers had died in 2012 and 2013, and more than 500 Indian migrants have died in Qatar since January 2012, according to official figures.
The Qatari authorities have refused to expand on the causes of the deaths, not all of which were on construction sites.
A full transcript of the report, which details the atrocious conditions which many migrant workers face in Qatar, is available here: http://www.ituc-csi.org/IMG/pdf/the_cas ... 170314.pdf
There were calls for Russia to be stripped of the Sochi Olympics in line with their treatment of minority groups in their country, if that's the case I think calls for Qatar to be stripped of the World Cup should equally come forth. As the world cup is not for another eight years, there's surely ample time to find another host nation for it which is more deserving than Qatar. The selection process of Qatar was highly controversial to begin with and rife with allegations of bribery by Qatari officials, including more recent allegations made by the Telegraph.
Honestly, I'm perplexed as to why Qatar would have been legitimately chosen to host the World Cup in the first place. This issue is simply the latest in a long list of reasons as to why they should not have been gifted the opportunity in place of more deserving nations who do a much better job of upholding the principles which FIFA claims to defend, like zero-tolerance policies on racism and homophobia. However, FIFA surely cannot remain idle while their product, the World Cup, remains linked to this sort of worker abuse; they need to act in order to protect their reputation and I believe this necessitates removing the 2022 world cup from Qatar and re-running a host selection process with the middle east nation excluded from proceedings.