UN misses opportunity to pressure Qatar for reform

5 min read

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid bin Ra’ad Al Hussein during a recent visit to Qatar, went soft on the country, commending the progress it has made including ‘replacing’ Kafala. He trivialized the violations, which he said “... happen in all countries in the world.” - Opens in new tab

This is the kind of reasoning that Qatar escapes to in order to evade accountability, as MRRORS.org detailed in an article a few weeks ago.

The MDPS Labor Market Survey's numbers are telling of the plight of MDWs

While Qatar has made some progress, authorities continues to deny the scale of problems faced by its lower-income migrant workers.

The UN High Commissioner took a seemingly softer approach to the country’s migrant rights violations – contrasting with a previously more critical stance of the UN. As recently as 2014, the UN came down heavily on Qatar, demanding abolition of Kafala.

Global Detention Project on Qatar' detention practices

In its special report on Immigration Detention in the Gulf, the Global Detention Project the highlights the oppressive practices states adopt in the name of labour market management.

Some excerpts from the report:

“The 2009 Sponsorship Law provides criminal sanctions for violations of status-related provisions, which are enumerated in Chapter Seven of the law. Article 51 provides that a person may be fined up to 50,000 Qatari Riyals (approximately $13,700 U.S.) and/or jailed for up to three years for violations of: Article 2 (not holding valid passport/travel document and/or visa to enter Qatar); Article 3 (failure to enter/exit the country through authorized ports of entry/exit); Article 10 (2) (remaining in Qatar beyond visa validity or failing to obtain a residence permit); Article 11 (staying in Qatar in breach of purpose for which one originally entered, and/or failing to leave when business is completed)...

Employers and sponsors often retain workers’ passports and fail to provide them with a valid Qatar ID, which makes migrant workers vulnerable to charges of illegal residence or not holding valid ID.

The GDP report quotes the UN Special Rapporteur, who visited the detention centre and interviewed migrants in 2013.

According to the rapporteur, additional alternative measures include housing in shelters. “The Special Rapporteur was informed that some migrants asked to be kept in the deportation centre because they had no place to live. Keeping such people in a shelter would not only be much cheaper than detaining them, but would also better respect the human rights and dignity of those concerned. … The capacity in such shelters should be expanded and new shelters should be established for all migrants in difficult situations, men, women and children.”

In his report, the UN expert reported that access to a phone was not guaranteed for those who did not have money to pay for the pay phone and mobile phones were confiscated.

“The detainees therefore had difficult access to the outside world and little knowledge about complaint mechanisms and how to challenge their detention. The detainees reported that there was no way for them to make complaints about their detention or the conditions in detention. Some of them had spent several months in the deportation centre and lacked information about their situation, not knowing why they were there or what would happen to them.”

The complete report can be accessed here - Opens in new tab.

Qatar renamed the Kafala system in late 2015 but retained many of its most oppressive regulations, including exit permits and a ban on freedom of association, as well as a loophole allowing employers to confiscate passports.

High Commissioner Al Hussein quite clearly engaged only with workers handpicked by Qatar, and failed to provide a comprehensive picture of the country’s migrant worker issues.

From workers left homeless after escaping abusive employment, to apartheid-like segregation of housing, to the lack of accessible legal aid and abominable deportation practices (see sidebar), the evidence of all that’s wrong in Qatar is readily visible both around the small country and in the prolific research and reporting undertaken by rights organisations and independent media.

The UN High Commissioner’s comments will only feed Qatar’s denial of a dire situation.

Domestic Worker invisibility persists

Media reports do not indicate that the High Commissioner touched upon the plight of the country’s 154,000* domestic workers.

Yet even the latest Labor Force Sample Survey - Opens in new tab released by Qatar’s Ministry of Development Planning and Statistics (MDPS) highlight the exploitative conditions under which migrant work in the domestic or household sector. The survey corroborated Amnesty International's report My Sleep is My Break - Opens in new tab, which found that Qatar’s migrant domestic workers work on an average 60 hours a week, amongst the highest in the world.

The MDPS’s findings place domestic workers between 50 and 56 hours a week. About 56.1% of all females in the labor force are involved in ‘household’ activities, and a total of 154,000 migrants (majority women) are involved in domestic work.

Domestic workers are not covered under the labour law, and there is little or no protection extended to them. Elsewhere, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia have attempted to draw up a standard contract or bilateral agreements that cover some of the pressing issues facing MDWS, including lack of a rest day and excruciatingly long working hours. These measures are imperfect and incremental steps towards realizing domestic worker rights, but their limited scope of protection marginally exceeds Qatar’s.

*MDPS survey that covered 22,749 households and 128,879 individuals (Qatari and non-Qatari).

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UN misses opportunity to pressure Qatar for reform

Global Detention Project on Qatar' detention practices

Domestic Worker invisibility persists

Have you had a similar experience?

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