The organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) considered today “shameful” Qatar’s refusal to create a new reparation fund to compensate immigrant employees who faced “serious abuses” during their participation in the construction of the facilities of the “World Cup Qatar 2022”.
The NGO commented, in a statement, recent statements by the Qatari Labor Minister, Ali al Marri, in which he rejected the pressure from HRW and Amnesty International to create the fund, and called “false information” and “rumours” the accusations of numerous NGOs against his country regarding the mistreatment of thousands of immigrant employees.
“It is shameful that the Qatari authorities reject a reparation fund that would compensate migrant workers for past abuses,” said Minky Worden, director of Global Initiatives at HRW, according to the note.
Qatari government spokespersons consulted by EFE r They rejected, however, that Al Marri spoke in those terms about the creation of a fund and that his statements were misinterpreted, since he simply limited himself to pointing out that this type of program already exists and that therefore there is no need to create one. new.
In this context, Al Marri pointed out that the insistence of these NGOs in pressing for this “duplicate” fund is nothing more than a “publicity stunt” and that there is no “criterion” to establish another fund.
Al Marri also described as a “smear campaign” and “racism” the statements by organizations such as HRW and AI about the death of thousands of migrant employees during the construction of the facilities in Qatar .
In its statement, HRW denounced that Al Marri’s response shows that even “migrant workers and their families continue to suffer serious damage from the construction of the tournament infrastructure, from widespread wage theft to thousands of unexplained deaths”.
Likewise, Worden stated regarding the creation of the new fund that HRW claims that this is necessary because “it has documented that the compensation mechanisms of the Qatari government, although promising introduced too late, are too limited in scope, and have significant enforcement gaps that do not address past abuses.”
“Qatari authorities, Qatari-based companies, and governments of the countries of origin have important data that could be used to establish a comprehensive compensation fund”, he added.
As an example, the NGO pointed out that “to repatriate the body of a migrant worker, documents are required, including a power of attorney, the consent of the legal heirs, a certificate of death, a police report, a medical report, an air waybill and an embalming certificate.”
“There is or There is a clear need for FIFA to establish a compensation fund to save the legacy of the next World Cup, which has been seriously tarnished by abuses”, stressed Worden.
“Qatar must not to oppose but to help guarantee the success of said fund (…) the problem of establishing a compensation fund has never been one of data, but of political will”, he concluded.