According to the latest census, nearly 60% of Qatar’s population live in labor ‘camps - Opens in new tab’ – like the one that saw a fatal fire. Yet, this is the richest country in the world. Qatar’s labour camps (workers’ accommodation) are hidden out of sight, isolated and squalid - Opens in new tab. The luxury and exclusivity Qatar aspires for can only be built on the lives of the hundreds of thousands of migrant workers it brings in.
Just days before this accident, Building and Wood Worker’s International launched “Hard Hats for Education” – Call for support to families of workers injured or killed in Qatar. - Opens in new tab
A statement on BWI’s website said:
“[...] workers find themselves left to their own resources to cover the costs of medical treatment and there have been incidents where workers were forced to collect among themselves funds to cover the repatriation costs of their friends and colleagues killed as some employers refuse to pay for these costs. Families often receive little or no compensation, leaving them completely without income.”
Qatar recently announced that the government would repatriate dead migrants free of cost - Opens in new tab. Compensation remains at the discretion of the employer, unless there has been some legal intervention.
There’s increasing global attention on Qatar’s human rights abuse against migrant workers, and pressure to reform - Opens in new tab. While some progress has been made (such as the Wage Protection System - Opens in new tab), it doesn’t go far enough to right the wrongs. The long-promised Kafala reforms are yet to be implemented. Incredulously, Qatar’s response to incidents that show it in poor light has been to tighten information flow, as if it were wishing the problem away.
A local daily reporting the fatalities, adds the following at the end of its very brief report - Opens in new tab:
"Meanwhile, some employees of a security company died and many were injured in a bus accident on Al Khor coastal road, Al Sharq reports.
Police and ambulance team rushed to the spot and launched rescue operations. Further details were not available."
In a nutshell, this impassiveness encompasses the country’s attitude towards the lives of migrant workers. If authorities make no details available, the hope is that the story will fizzle out.
Photo courtesy: Amnesty International
