The FAW should support a compensation fund for the migrant workers of Qatar
The FAW should support a compensation fund for the migrant workers of Qatar
Why this petition matters
On June 5th, the Welsh national football team qualified for the World Cup for the first time in 64 years. While this has been a time of great excitement for Welsh football fans, the extensive exploitation of migrant workers as part of the organisation of Qatar 2022 continues to cast a dark shadow over the upcoming tournament.
Numerous human rights groups have described the situation of migrant workers in Qatar, who are primarily derived from impoverished communities across the Indian subcontinent, as an example of modern-day slavery. Since the awarding of hosting rights to Qatar in dubious circumstances in 2010, the Gulf state has embarked on an extensive infrastructure programme to prepare for the World Cup, which has inflicted a devastating cost on the thousands of migrants who have worked on the construction sites.
Their working and living conditions, which have included working twelve-hour days through temperatures of over 40 degrees Celsius for as little as 82 pence per hour, and being housed in cramped and squalid accommodation, have had fatal consequences.
A recent investigation by the Guardian revealed that at least 6,500 migrant workers from the Indian subcontinent died in Qatar from 2010 to 2020, a figure that is likely to be an underestimate due to unreliable record-keeping.
The abusive power of employers, underpinned by the kafala system, has also severely limited the ability of migrants to change their employment status, to leave the country and open their own bank accounts. Those who have spoken out against their treatment have been subjected to threats, intimidation and the withholding of wages, often backdated over several months.
Though the Qatari authorities have recently introduced new labour laws to improve the situation of migrant workers in their country, their practical implementation has been uneven and instances of abuse continue to be widely reported, less than three months before the start of the tournament.
The Football Association of Wales was recently commended by Amnesty International for advocating ‘further significant and lasting improvements in the conditions of migrant workers in Qatar’.
However, it should now go one step further by publicly backing Amnesty's calls for FIFA and the Qatari government to establish a compensation fund, of a value at least equal to the $440 million prize money at the World Cup, to support the families of deceased or injured migrant labourers, and to cover outstanding unpaid wages. This will go some way to providing relief to those who suffered the most dehumanising hardships in the realisation of Qatar's World Cup ambitions.
The FAW should demonstrate the strong moral leadership that has been glaringly absent amongst FIFA to date by lending its voice to Amnesty's campaign.