the hell of migrant workers in Qatar

“Precarious living conditions, poor quality water, extended working hours, we know it’s not good for our health, but do we really have a choice?” asks Krishna Timislina. This 36-year-old worker worked for several years on the World Cup sites in Qatar. “Thanks to our work, Qatar is taking shape. Stadiums, shopping malls, bridges, roads… are coming out of the ground. It’s magical to see this city grow, but it’s a dream where we are not welcome.“

Interviewed by the two journalists Sébastien Castelier and Quentin Muller in their book “Les Esclaves de l’homme-petrole” (Éd. Marchialy), he describes his working conditions: the infernal paces – sometimes up to eighteen hours a day – held up with energy drinks, extreme weather conditions – “summer is hell on Earth” –, questionable water, accommodation in a prefab with no space or privacy and above all the deaths of exhaustion or in construction accidents…

“Migration Russian Roulette”

How to explain that, in spite of these now widely known dramatic conditions, workers continue to flow in from Kenya, Nepal, India, Pakistan or Sudan?

“They play Russian roulette of migration. They know that the danger is not an absolute certainty so they try their luck”, explains Sébastien Castelier. “What attracts them are the high salaries, very high compared to those in their country of origin. It is an economic opportunity that is worth the risks.”

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For their investigation, the two independent journalists gave the floor to all these workers, too often reduced to simple figures by the macabre counts of the dead on the construction sites of the World Cup. Gathering around sixty testimonies from the heart of the industrial zone of Qatar, which hosts nearly 400,000 workers, but also from the countries of origin, Sébastien Castelier and Quentin Muller describe in detail the migratory system on which the Gulf countries have been built. , true modern slavery.

“It’s a disposable workforce”, summarizes Sébastien Castelier. “Migration to the Gulf countries is organized like that. It is impossible for an immigrant to obtain local nationality. So when he no longer works, he leaves. We saw it during the Covid when everything was at the stop.”

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However, the Gulf countries are not the only ones to benefit from this migratory system. In Nepal, 25% of the GDP is generated by women and men who go to work abroad. A situation that encourages governments to watch these migrations with a benevolent eye, even to encourage them by organizing departures and thus preventing candidates for migration from falling into the hands of crooked touts.

The Kafala, the heart of the farm

However, despite all the preparation in the world, the arrivals in the Gulf countries border on shock and falling into an exploitative system. In the center of the latter, the “Kafala”. This system, widespread in the Gulf but also in Jordan and in Lebanon, assigns each migrant a sponsor (or “Kafeel”), often his employer. In fact, each immigrant often finds himself at the mercy of his employer, who most of the time confiscates his passport upon his arrival.

“It’s a mechanism that gives the employer a lot of power over his employee. If the employer follows the rules, everything will be fine. But if not, the employee’s life can become hell,” says Sebastien Castelier

In full communication operation for the World Cup, Qatar abolished Kafala in 2016: “But several perverse mechanisms of this system remain”, contradicts the Gulf specialist. “In particular the possibility of declaring an employee on the run. If a domestic worker wants to denounce abuses by her employer, the latter can declare her on the run in one click. The police, instead of taking the complaint of the servant, will bring her back directly to his executioner.”

“As in all countries in the world, there are virtuous employers but also crooked ones. The problem is that the crooked can do what they want! There is a feeling of total impunity”, explains Sébastien Castelier. “Workers cannot rely on justice. Employers know that all they have to do is send them back to their country and they won’t hear about it again.”

What is the real death toll on the construction sites of the World Cup?

The massive influx of foreign workers will have enabled Qatar to prepare the necessary infrastructure for one of the biggest sporting events in the world by building new roads, a new airport, a tailor-made rail network and seven new stadiums. However, the human cost has been dramatic. The International Labor Organization has counted fifty World Cup workers dead in 2020 and hundreds more injured – an understated figure according to NGOs. In a report published in August 2022, the NGO Amnesty International claimed “that more than 15,021 non-Qatari people – of all ages and professions – died between 2010 and 2019” in the country, while conceding that “without investigation , the data on the causes of death are not reliable”.

In 2021, the British daily The Guardian put forward a figure that has had a lasting impact on public opinion: he estimates that 6,500 workers have died in Qatar since the awarding of the World Cup to the emirate. “These data come mainly from the embassies of Asian workers. We do not have the statistics for African workers”, contextualizes the co-author of the book “The slaves of the oil man”, recalling that he is probably under- assessed.

In addition, the two journalists also point out that this assessment does not count the workers who die once they return home. Throughout their book, they investigate and question these early deaths, often due to kidney problems following the ingestion of poor quality water during their stay in the Gulf or the abuse of artisanally distilled alcohol and energy drinks to keep up the hellish pace away from their families.

“It’s inhumane”

Frightening mortality figures which can be explained in particular by the climatic conditions in the peninsula, no larger than Île-de-France: “In summer it is very hot. Working in the building industry under these temperatures is just hell. Qatar has enacted a ban on working in the summer between 10:30 a.m. and 3 p.m., but many violations have been noted”, denounces Sébastien Castelier.

And the co-author details the rest of the deadly cocktail of factors: poor hydration on construction sites with water that is often of poor quality, days that are often too long with workers encouraged to work overtime to send more money to their relatives, unworthy living conditions with the overcrowding of workers in unsanitary barracks and poor quality food, often provided by the employer.

But Sébastien Castelier also points to an unknown cause of death: the lack of training of this workforce who have come from afar. “We put untrained people on huge machines or scaffolding, they often have no idea of ​​​​the safety measures to adopt and accidents are increasing”, notes Sébastien Castelier.

Qatar plays its image

With this World Cup-2022, the emirate knows that it is playing its international image: “Qatar is perfectly aware of the problem that represents the plight of migrant workers. There is a desire to keep control of communication and the story, that of a reforming country,” said Sébastien Castelier.

This image is therefore jealously protected. Throughout the book, the two journalists describe a heavy atmosphere where freelance journalists do not seem welcome to “put human stories” on mortality on construction sites or to visit the industrial zone on their own away from organized press trips.

“The Qataris themselves are trying to protect this storytelling”, explains Sébastien Castelier, recounting the misadventure of his co-author Quentin Muller. While reporting in the industrial zone, he was taken to task and then followed by two Qatari women, eager to notify the police of his presence in this district, where the dark side of the country is buried.

Qatar, which lifted a ban on workers changing employers and introduced a minimum monthly wage of 1,000 Qatari riyals (about 280 euros), says it has done more than any other country in the region and firmly rejects the reports of thousands of deaths on advanced construction sites by international media.

“Qatar have implemented reforms but they were late and therefore they will only be quantifiable after the World Cup. If they are sincere – why not after all? – we will not know until after. they are not, they are likely to go back when the media attention has moved away”, warns the journalist.

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And the future is likely to bring its procession of new tragedies in the Gulf. In 2029, Saudi Arabia will host the Asian Winter Games, in the future Neom megalopolis. In addition to the ecological aberration constituted by the organization of the Winter Games in the desert, the Kafala is still in place there.