She did not pay salaries of "hundreds of millions of dollars"

Report: Qatar companies steal workers' wages, leaving them destitute

The report indicated that thousands of workers were fired without prior notice.

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A report by a human rights organization revealed that companies in Qatar have not paid "hundreds of millions of dollars" in salaries and benefits to low-wage workers, since the outbreak of the new Corona virus, to increase their suffering in one of the richest countries in the world.

A report by "Equidem", a human rights organization, said that thousands of workers were dismissed without prior notice, given reduced wages or unpaid leave, deprived them of salary and end-of-service payments, or forced them to bear the costs of flights to return to their countries. .

The findings of the report amount to the level of "wage theft" on an unprecedented scale, which made workers destitute, suffering shortages of food, and unable to send money to their families in their homelands during the epidemic, according to the British newspaper "The Guardian".

"I came here to work for my family, not to be a beggar, I live alone," said a cleaner from Bangladesh, who has not received his salary for four months.

The British newspaper pointed to separate research by the Business and Human Rights Resource Center, which found that 87% of the “worker abuse” cases, which have affected nearly 12,000 workers since 2016, were related to unpaid or late wages.

About 2 million foreign workers are employed in Qatar, most of them from South Asia, and many of them are on construction projects related to the 2022 World Cup.

Although Equidim indicated that the Qatari government took some measures during the Corona pandemic to give workers their rights, such as obligating companies to continue paying workers' salaries during quarantine or closure orders, the report warns of a “widespread failure to comply” with these laws and other regulations.

Later, the Qatari government allowed companies that stopped working due to the epidemic to give workers unpaid leave, or to terminate their contracts as long as they comply with the requirements of the labor law, including giving a notice period and paying benefits due.

The report highlights some of the violations that workers have been subjected to in Qatar. For example, about 2,000 workers working for one construction company were laid off "immediately".

Most of them did not receive their owed wages or the end of service settlement, a payment equivalent to three weeks' salary for each full year of work.

"Many foreign workers are in a very vulnerable position, with no real ability to assert their rights or seek redress for violations," the report said.

The director of "Equidim", Mustafa Qadri, said, "The lack of a legal right to organize or join unions was harmful ... it prevented workers from obtaining seats at a table with the government and employers to negotiate a fair share of the money."

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