Qatar accused of using cheap labor ...

no comments. The other day i read a book and in the first page it says, positive confession will successfully change your life.

So i don't want to lie and create a impression that Qatar is the only culprit. I am coming from the same background as mentioned above, maybe i earn a few extra hundreds and have privilege for internet but fact remains intact.

Back home there are less opportunity and no matter how hard you try you are betrayed by your own people. Everyday you fight to win. You fight to have a life and to live it, but because of numerous failed attempts one decides to fly overseas.

I know the conditions are worse, and more extreme than back home but the point is when we send some love in form of cash our family they don't have to go through what we are facing. At least there are 5 other people happy because of me.

The CULPRIT is our own country, Qatar is giving us a lot and to expect more is human nature.

And as you know for us in the middle east, the south east and mostly in Asia, FAMILY MATTERS and it comes first.

But indeed there can be a lot of improvements considered from the govt of Qatar as it is the richest country on the planet. :)

Yes, you are right Yasir.

Qatar continually make the argument that they have all sorts of laws to protect people against all sorts of things.

The problem is implementation...

That's one of the argument's in Qatar's defense:

Most of the worst abuses are occurring in the manpower exporting countries themselves. The people making the loans to workers seeking the jobs, and the recruitment companies charging people to apply for jobs etc are problems that Qatar will struggle to eradicate.

I meant the implementation of it, not just the law in paper.

Yes, you are right in the last part of your message.

Really sad and shocking to read all this. To be honest, I did not know that the situation is this worse for housemaids.

One thing that can fix all this is justice for everyone, and no one should be spared if guilty.

Its a bitter world we live in... really depressing...

Yasir, it's true that there are people who come here and do better than had they stayed.

But for many, many workers, that's not the case. They take loans in their home countries to pay recruitment companies to get them jobs in Qatar. They then arrive here and discover that they aren't paid what was promised, they work long hours in harsh conditions, and they are denied the ability to resign and return to their home countries.

It's not uncommon for a man with nothing to seek a job in the Middle East, and 5 years later he's a man deep in debt with no way of getting ahead.

Stories like this are all too common:

The number of Nepali women migrant workers committing suicide in the Gulf is increasing each year.

About 82 Nepali women working as housemaids in the Gulf countries including Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates have committed suicide in the last 18 months, according to UN Women.

About 244,000 Nepali women are believed to be working in Gulf countries and a majority of them are said to be illegal.

Mostly young and vulnerable Nepali women workers have faced severe mental and physical torture. This had forced Nepal government to set the minimum age criteria of 30 years to be eligible to work as housemaids in Gulf countries few months back.

According to UN Women, about 2,822 Nepali women were rescued from their workplaces in the last 18 months till June 2012 after they complained of extreme physical and mental torture including sexual exploitation. About 25 unmarried girls working as housemaids had returned home with a child during the period.

Or this:

Pasupathi Mariappan, 33, originally from Tamil Nadu in South India, became the twenty-sixth Indian expat to commit suicide in Bahrain this year. The blacksmith who worked at Manama-based construction giant Nass Contracting Company, a subsidiary of the Nass Corporation, a wealthy Bahraini company, was found by police three days after he hung himself with a rope from a palm tree in a public garden in Hamad town last month.

Or this:

CHENNAI: The Gulf dream seems to have become a death trap for Indians, with 79 of them committing suicide this year alone in the UAE due to mounting debts. Most of the victims belonged to Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

"In 2006, 109 people committed suicide. The number rose to 118 in 2007. This year, from January to June, 79 Indians have killed themselves," Manish Kumar Sinha of the Indian consulate in Dubai told TOI.

Or This:

Suicide rates among Indian workers in Gulf countries are on the rise. According to a Saudi health ministry report, 203 Indians committed suicide in the country last year, accounting for 43% of the total number of suicides. Obviously, something is seriously wrong. Why are so many Indian workers resorting to this extreme act?

For many Indians, dreams of making it big in the Gulf are turning sour. The reasons are many – pitiable working conditions, bad living conditions, non-payment or delay in payment of wages, substitution of contracts, retention of passports, physical exploitation, cheating, inflation, appreciation of the rupee, and depression due to long separation from loved ones are only some of the reasons that are driving Indian workers in the Gulf to take this extreme step.

To top it all, many of the Indian expatriates in the Gulf region are skilled or semi-skilled laborers who are not covered by the labor laws of the Gulf countries. In times of distress, they don’t have a venue to air their grievances. The recent riots by workers were clearly a result of this situation.

Here is what I think....

I agree with brit, things will change only if labor stop coming in here.

Sun will remain there... whatever you pay to an outside worker. usually they stop working at 10 AM and work in the night, which I think is a good practice.

Apart from that, the labor comes from really deprived areas of developing countries. What they save here worth a lot in their back homes, that's why they keep on coming here.

Apart from Middle East, I don't know any other place where these under privileged can go and earn the living. Canada, Australia, etc. have a lot high bar for skilled worked to enter in their country. So, they don't have much options.

The areas of improvement could be:

a) Change of job without NOC

b) No exit permit

c) Passport in their own possession

d) Lower the bar of basic salary requirement for family visas, etc.

Poverty threshold is a helpful, and notional guide. I don't think it tells us an awful lot.

If someone went from having a dollar a day, to two dollars a day would we congratulate them on doubling their income, or still see them as being dirt poor?

its no secret of Qatar exploiting these workers but then again...it made the headlines and not so much aid to help them. Government has proved its capabilities in enforcing rules and regulations in this country, maybe they should help the poor guys by atleast being strict about certain conditions of the labors.

Poverty lines depend on country to country, and in some cases, such as India, there are two calculations - one each for rural and metropolitan to reflect the vastly different costs of housing and food.

Surprised, there is mistake in your calculation..the salary of the labor is mentioned as 1$ per hour, so they are not under the poverty line..

Hope something will be done in this regard very soon..

ITUC General Secretary Sharan Burrow last month said she was "disappointed to hear that the Qatar 2022 Supreme Committee has publicly asserted that it has 'sought out concrete suggestions on best practice'. The ITUC, representing the worlds working people, has not been consulted nor seen the draft charter. The UN, IMF, World Bank and the G20 all see fit to discuss labour issues with the ITUC, and consult with worker representatives in formal and informal dialogues. Yet Qatar's Supreme Committee appears to ignore these accepted protocols in their failure to discuss the workers charter with the ITUC.”

I'm sure the Qatar 2022 Supreme Committee knows so much more about drafting legislation to protect the rights of workers than the International Trade Union Confederation, or the UN, or the IMF, or the World Bank, or the G20.

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=57655

The sad and funny thing is that in the name of sponsorship its the others (not the locals) in HR or some stupid managers who play around with people they cant get along with or whom they want to get out of the way or who try to get rid of people who stand in their way of enriching their own pockets

I agree with you sentiments, but it will nevcer happen because there are large profits at stake for all..

Brit, if the workers stop coming, that will end these practices.

But the other possibility is if others involved in the projects boycott them too.

I've mentioned previously the boycott that artists imposed on the Guggenheim project in Abu Dhabi, which eventually forced the developers (the UAE government) to appoint a monitor to ensure workers' rights were protected.

So Qatar can either wait for the laborers to stop coming, or they can be surprised when construction companies, suppliers, and football team officials, players, referees and others associated with 2022, announce a boycott.

Or we could all just pretend that everything is fine.

http://gulflabor.wordpress.com/2013/01/07/update/

whether she was a publicity seeker or not, we are all aware of the slavery practice in Qatar.

Some people brague about the fact that whatever those labors are earning here is good enough for them to live decently in their countries.

However, they ignore the fact that many of them must die, in addition to that, the cost of living here is very high so even if the money they are getting is enough in their countries, they still need food which is very expensive and they need to have a minimum social life which unfortunately they are deprived of. That in addition to the unsafe environments they are working in (was it the heat or the safety factors)

Sharan Burrow is of course a publicity seeker. There's no point protesting about an issue like labor problems in Qatar if you don't get any publicity. It's not the merits of her arguments that will change policy, it will be the bad publicity that the country is attracting that will make things change.

That said, she has devoted the last 20 years to workers' right, and for that she is to be commended.

Sharan Burrow is a publicity seeker. However , much os what is written is true.

The fact of the matter is that this happens in many many countries around the world.S Supply and demand. The only way things will change is if the workers stop coming. That will not happen anytime soon ..

Really sad..sometimes when I go and meet them It takes my sleep for few nights..

There are problems which as a common man we cant sort them out..

I met one labour who was offered 1150 QR per month salary as per his contract but every month he was just getting 750 QR. His employer told him this is what I could pay you..if you dont want leave the country by your own or complain in police or whatever..

What a poor labour would do? He has his son studying back home..

Shocking. I'm stunned I tell ya.