Public Health & Crises

Quarantines and isolation have become a norm over the last year. We share three separate experiences of migrants in Qatar under differing circumstances and at different points in time. First, accounts from workers isolated in their accommodation after exposure to colleagues who had tested positive; second, a video and short explanation from a domestic worker who returned from a holiday and had to go through mandatory quarantine paid for by her employer. And finally, the experience of a worker who tested positive and was sent to institutional quarantine. Names have been changed to protect their identity.

The son of a migrant worker writes about the fragility of migration and how the pandemic has affected his family

As vaccine drives in the Gulf kick-off, it is critical that plans include migrant workers’ access to registration and appointments.

There are only 12 inspectors to cover close to 760,000 workers (the majority of whom are migrants) and nearly 83,000 establishments. Even at a rate of two inspections a day per inspector, they would be able to make not more than 6,000 inspections in a year.