If Qatar continues its festivities linked to the World Cup, there is another reality when you leave downtown Doha and enter the industrial zone.
This is where Paul, 26, from Uganda lives.
After having been a motorcycle delivery man and then a construction worker, he is now unemployed because of the World Cup.
Deprived of his passport by his former boss and not paid for months, the young man has only one dream, to leave this country as soon as possible and return home.
From our Special Envoy in Doha,
The story of Paul, this 26-year-old Ugandan, is tragically classic.
This is just one more story among thousands of others, of these anonymous people who build and run Qatar, without whom the World Cup would never have taken place.
One more story that Qatar will sweep away because, basically, all this is just further proof of the racism of the Western media.
A true story, however.
Because Paul is very real.
He is even tactile, and it was his hands that were looking for us when he told of the hell he saw on a daily basis, invisible next to the World Cup caravan.
Why tell it, then, if it is as banal as people say?
Why this one and not another?
Quite simply because Paul contacted us through our colleague Quentin Müller, who knows the region having traveled through it as part of his book-investigation
The Slaves of the Oilman
.
Also because Paul needed to talk, to empty his bag, because Paul is exhausted.
And finally, because this sadly classic story concentrates in this little piece of existence all the evils denounced for years by Western NGOs and journalists about the small gas emirate.
The Qatari El Dorado was just a smokescreen
After a few exchanges by SMS, an appointment is made in a large luxurious shopping center on the outskirts of Doha.
After fifteen minutes talking in a cafeteria, Paul, 1.75 m, the stocky figure covered with a Sweden cap that he never takes off, leads us to a nearby wasteland, sheltered from the cameras which scan every square meter of this country.
The interview can then begin.
Came to Qatar just over a year ago because, at home in Uganda, "there is no money, no job" and he has a father, a mother, a wife and a one-and-a-half-year-old little girl to feed, today Paul dreams of nothing but returning home.
“What we found here is not what we were sold.
A job, a good salary, decent housing, enough to send money to our families.
There's none of that here for us,” he breathes, staring into space.
Convinced by an acquaintance who had tried his luck and who had contacts in a home delivery service company, Paul had to go into debt to find the 2,000 dollars that this person was asking for in order to get him a visa and pay for his ticket. of plane.
Arriving in Doha, a second intermediary asks him for the same amount.
Paul refuses and the guy drops the case.
Too bad, maybe it will work with the next one, who knows.
A boss with thug methods
After a few administrative procedures, here he is with his motorcycle license in hand and an employment contract with Talabaat, one of the main meal delivery companies in Doha.
“At first it was going pretty well.
And even though the working days were long, at least twelve hours a day, I was paid on time, he says.
But soon the problems appeared.
My boss, a Sudanese, began to take a large part of my salary from me, he deducted a whole host of things without anyone really knowing what it corresponded to.
He gave me no explanation, it was like that, period.
At the time, what can we do?
We need money, so we accept.
»
One day when Paul is on his way to a delivery, a car hits him and overturns him - "here, they drive like crazy", he specifies, we have been able to realize it since our arrival.
The motorcycle is damaged, the guy too, in the leg.
We first mention the motorcycle, because that is what worries the boss.
And if he promises to come to his employee's bedside, Paul will wait in vain for him in his room.
After two days, he ends up going to the hospital on his own.
On the spot, he is asked for his "health card", this health insurance card that any company is supposed to provide to its workers, of which Paul has never seen the color.
“They agreed to give me first aid, they gave me an infusion, put on bandages and then they told me to come back later with my boss.
I called him, he said ''ok, I'll send someone to you''.
But since he didn't come, I ended up taking care of myself with the means at hand.
I stayed in bed for three days but I had to go back to work because the money was no longer coming in and I no longer had enough to help my family.
»
From delivery to construction
He therefore resumes his post and only receives that month a miserable 166 Qatari riyals, the local currency, or about forty euros.
Poorly cared for, Paul quickly fell ill.
Headache, fever, chills, nausea.
Without a single penny in his account, he resolves to use the few riyals he was supposed to give to his boss after his day's work, “to buy medicine, some food and water.
»
In the head of his boss, it's too much.
First injured, now sick and also a thief, Paul is definitely not worth it.
The man therefore bursts into his worker's accommodation, accompanied by a henchman, “a Malawian” remembers Paul, to clear the way.
“They took everything from me, my phone, the keys to the motorbike, the helmet, everything.
And they gave them to another worker.
So I found myself with nothing.
I spent another two weeks in the accommodation, until I couldn't pay anymore.
That's where I had to go looking for another job.
It will be in construction, like hundreds of thousands of others in this city where houses and buildings are springing up like mushrooms.
“I was hired, without a contract since my former boss had kept my passport.
There, they paid us 105 riyals (27 euros) a week, it wasn't much but it was still more than what I earned before.
But I had no place to stay.
So I slept outside for almost two weeks, then on pieces of cardboard in construction sites, in houses under construction.
I got eaten by mosquitoes, I was hungry.
I suffered, suffered so much.
Seeing the distress of their companion, other workers end up making room for him in their accommodation for “a small rent”.
The unofficial kafala still in force in Qatar
We are at the beginning of November, the World Cup is approaching and the construction company is putting everyone out of work for the time of the big football festival.
The fewer construction sites and workers at work fans around the world see, the better.
Paul then makes a decision: without a job, without money, and soon without a home, the time has come to go home.
"Let's suffer, as much as I'm at home with my wife and my daughter," he blurted out as night fell on our vacant lot.
But things are not so simple (to change).
If, since the abolition of the kafala system by the government in 2020, the workers are supposed to be able to turn to the Qatari justice to claim their unpaid wages, their passport and to push their employers before the courts, the reality is very different.
There are many examples of workers who tried their luck and who are still waiting today for their file to be examined by the judicial authorities.
Paul himself knows plenty.
“I have friends that it happened to.
Some have filed a complaint for years, and no matter where they go to government services, it is always the same answer: "come back tomorrow".
However, even in this country, a company does not have the right to keep the passport of a worker if the latter asks for it, it is written in the law.
The company that does this risks a hefty fine of 25,000 riyals.
But in fact, the Qatari judicial machine is made to discourage us from filing a complaint against our bosses.
Because they are very happy that we are here to build their country.
»
For weeks, Paul has been tossed about from service to service without ever being able to plead his case, he who sincerely thought he was falling on attentive ears ready to help him.
“In the offices they are all Qataris, and they have bad hearts.
And while they make you go around in circles, you spend the little you have left to pay for transport to go from one service to another, to print the papers they ask for… All that for what?
For nothing… ".
He suspects the state services of being in league with his former boss, who would keep his passport to discourage his other employees from also claiming their dues in court.
“Let them expel me!
“says Paul, crushed by the system
The last resort he imagines, so desperate he seems?
Go directly to the detention center of Doha, the "Detention Prison Division", a sort of place of transit lost in the depths of the industrial zone, far from the gaze of onlookers and the luxury of the capital, from which the culprits are expelled of troubles that bother the Al-Thani family.
“I have no other choice because no one listens to me in the administrative services.
Let him kick me out!
They can even keep my passport if they want to, he said.
I just want to go home”.
He hopes at least to be able to sleep there until the situation resolves, because he no longer has enough to pay the rent with his companions in the galleys.
He takes the wallet from his back pocket to show us his fortune: “Thirteen riyals (less than three euros),
Despite the ordeal that has been his since his arrival in Qatar, Paul impresses with the mental strength he exudes.
“I must not cry, I must behave like a dignified man, but I am slowly dying inside.
Sometimes, when I feel like I'm going to crack, I get myself some alcohol.
But I'm still careful.
Many have sunk into alcoholism and drugs, to forget”.
Forget this insane life, far, very far from the World Cup that we celebrate about twenty kilometers away.
Paul loves football, too.
In the country, he played center forward before going down a notch, “number 6 or 8, he explains.
Like Pogba, I'm doing quite well to steer the game and bring the surplus into the box.
But I'm not clumsy in front of the goal either!
".
"But we're not welcome at the party," he said before leaving us.
The world should know what's going on here.
Contrary to what Qatar tries to make believe, 99% of what the Western media say is true.
I want to say to tourists, to supporters, come and see what we are experiencing, come and see the reality of this country which is trying to dazzle you.
»
Sport
World Cup 2022: "In Qatar, passports have replaced chains", says journalist Quentin Müller
Sport
World Cup 2022: How Qatar established itself as 'the center of the Arab world'
World Cup 2022
Soccer
Sport
Qatar
Human rights