Doha (AFP)
The wages of foreign workers in Qatar may not be paid in this rich Gulf gas country which is actively preparing for the 2022 World Cup, said the human rights organization Human Rights Watch (HRW).
Foreigners make up 90% of the country's 2.75 million inhabitants and most of them are employed on the construction sites of the 2022 Football World Cup.
Following criticism from HRW and Amnesty International, the country implemented a system in 2015 to prevent non-payment of wages.
But a Qatari company did not pay its executives for five months and its workers for two months, highlighting the flaws in this system, noted HRW in its report released on Saturday.
The company, whose name has not been provided, is helping to build one of the stadiums for the World Cup. It employs 6,000 people and the wages of some workers were not paid until after a protest despite the ban on social work in Qatar, said HRW.
"Qatar has passed certain laws to protect migrant workers, but the authorities seem more interested in promoting these minor reforms in the media than in implementing them," said Michael Page, HRW deputy director for the Middle East.
According to the NGO, the salaries of the executives of the unidentified company should be paid on February 16 while those of the workers were paid on February 7.
A joint report published in June 2019 by the Qatari Ministry of Labor and the International Labor Organization (ILO) pointed out that "wage abuses (...) are still far too frequent" in the country.
However, the new system has made it possible to "pay wages faster and reduce a series of wage abuses," the report added.
Under pressure from human rights defenders and international unions, Qatar is reforming its labor laws.
In October, he announced provisions aimed at canceling controversial rules applied to migrant workers, which notably prevented them from changing companies without authorization from the employer.
© 2020 AFP