Qatar labour reforms are merely ‘tinkering’, Amnesty tells CIOB conference

Human rights organisation Amnesty International told CIOB members attending this week’s conference in Qatar that planned reforms of the country’s kafala system did not go far enough, and warned of greater human misery as an increasing number of workers enter a dysfunctional system.

Amensty’s calls came as an agreement was signed between the CIOB and the Qatar Foundation, pledging support for the latter’s rigorous (though voluntary) welfare standards and contractors criticised Amnesty for painting too black a picture.

Last month Qatar said it would abolish its kafala labour system following reports of migrant worker deaths and widespread abuse of their human rights. This labour system binds migrant workers to their employers, a practice that Amnesty International and others have said leaves scope for exploitation.

James Lynch, a researcher for Amnesty International’s global issues programme, described the reforms as “tinkering”.

“When you look at the details, it was a very short announcement with a lot left unclear,” he said. “There have subsequently been some announcements which have added even more to the lack of clarity.”

Amnesty International says reforms to Qatar’s kafala system do not go far enough

He said the two key problems with kafala were the no-objection certificate and the exit permit. The no-objection certificate obliges a worker to get permission from their employer before they can work for anyone else. This obligation extends for two years after the worker leaves Qatar. 

The exit permit requirement means a worker cannot leave the country except with his company’s permission.

These two conditions mean that migrant workers are vulnerable to unscrupulous employers, Lynch said, adding that neither was addressed by the reforms announced in May. 

The government said it would link the no-objection requirement to the term of the worker’s contract, but if the contract were open-ended, the no-objection requirement would last five years. 

“What we heard almost immediately was that employers were saying they were only going to issue open-ended contracts from now on,” said Lynch. “So the reforms time-limit kafala, but only to five years. Many, many workers don’t stay longer than that anyway. So, if you come with a debt and find that you’ve been deceived about your salary, you’ll find you’re in the same boat as you were before. So we don’t see that as abolition – it’s just sort of tinkering.”

Lynch reiterated the findings of a November 2013 report that found instances of workers being paid less than they were promised, of having their pay delayed or withheld altogether and of being housed in “squalid” conditions.

He told the gathering of construction professionals that main contractors routinely passed responsibility for workers’ welfare to subcontractors who were “quite blasé” about the issue. 

He said “many” workers were suicidal, and not only the workers themselves but also families who faced the stigma of having a relative in the Gulf who was not sending money home.

He urged contractors to consider practical measures to prevent crises, such as contingency funds so that stranded workers could buy food. 

However, contractors in Qatar have criticised media and human rights groups for using selected cases of the mistreatment of migrant workers to paint a picture that is “much blacker” than reality.

One a senior manager at an established contractor told the CIOB’s Global Construction Review that over the past 15 years he had personally overseen the employment of around 90,000 workers from India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Africa, and he insisted that Amnesty International and the media were making the situation appear “much blacker” than it actually was.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, he took issue with some of Lynch’s points.

First, on the role and prevalence of subcontracting, he said that 75% to 80% of workers on his company’s projects – all but the most specialised skills – were directly employed, and he supervised recruitment personally, vetting the in-country agents and setting the skills and fitness testing. “I’ve been going to India for 15 years,” he said. 

Currently, just under 8,000 workers were housed in his camps, and he insisted that he was proud of the standards of accommodation. Camps, the largest of which has around 5,000 men, elect committees, chaired by the “camp boss”, to raise issues for the company’s attention. A doctor advises on menus to ensure they meet nutritional requirements. The manager said he regularly drops in unannounced to eat what the workers eat. “It’s perfectly acceptable,” he said. He was aware of only one suicide in the past 15 years and in that instance the man was employed by another company.

Workers’ passports were kept in a safe. This, he said, was to protect them from loss or damage and to make it easier for the company to process on the workers’ behalf the high volume of paperwork required in Qatar. He insisted that operatives were given their passports on request, and were free to leave at any time. An out-of-office-hours telephone number was provided for workers to request their passport should an emergency arise back home.

Another issue is that workers often arrive heavily in debt, having been forced to pay agents in their home countries up front fees to get to Qatar.

On the issue of payments withheld from workers, the manager told GCR that the root of the problem was not contractors or subcontractors holding on to cash rightly due to workers, but rather a widespread culture of non-payment among clients in Qatar, both public and private. 

“We’re owed millions,” he said. “I spend 30% of my time chasing debt. It drags on forever. There are many, many, many examples. Fortunately we have a high volume of cash flow so we can survive, and we pay workers and subcontractors on the dot, but many get into difficulties and can’t pay.”

The manager told GCR that there was a lot of unrealistic talk about standards at the moment.

“Ask the workers themselves what they want and they’ll give you what they require,” he said. “I put in power showers in camps and two days later they’d all been ripped out. They weren’t what the workers wanted. It’s not what they’re used to. Four times I put up shower curtains and each time they disappeared.”

Of Amnesty International, he said: “They were being selective, picking on extreme cases to make a point. It has given the issue a high level of media exposure, and that has got to be a good thing, but what’s really needed is better inspections to bring the ugly up to the level of good.”