Beirut: The Arab Observatory for Rights of Workers and their Families has said the campaign unleashed against workers’ rights in Qatar was exaggerated.
In a statement issued in the Lebanese capital yesterday, the observatory said: “We are following the conditions of workers’ rights in the Arab Gulf region, including Qatar and we read the information published by different international organisations and unions as well as the media, most recent of which was the report published by The Guardian newspaper.
Migrant workerforce in the Gulf generally faces many challenges and difficulties and there are violations of the internationally recognised conventions on workers’ rights and working conditions. Governments, including official bodies in Qatar have admitted that there are many challenges in reality and this is an important indication for addressing the many problems.
The observatory welcomed the statements made by Qatar National Human Rights Committee (NHRC) during a press conference held by its Chairman H E Dr Ali bin Smaikh Al Marri yesterday in Doha as well as the statement given by Ali Ahmed Al Khulaifi, Consultant of International Relations at Qatar’s Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs which affirmed the commitment of Qatar to international conventions and their enforcement on the ground.
The statement stressed that the observatory, through the monitoring of the legal status of those workers, noticed that there is a great legislative progress in the protection of migrant workers’ rights in Qatar represented in the introduction of amendments to the labour law to achieve greater protection for workers, as well as to the law on the entry of foreigners with a view to reducing the control of the employer on the conditions of migrant workers.
“The Committee told us that amendments on the labour law are underway to add a criminal penalty on delay of wages, and there are radical changes on the sponsorship system on the table for discussion by the competent authorities,” the statement said.
It said “The observatory, through its monitoring of employment conditions in the State of Qatar and the monitoring of media reports, has noticed that political agendas are moving these files rather than rights in order to put pressure with the aim of transferring the organization of the 2022 World Cup won by Qatar. A part of that was the campaign’s sliding to unreasonable exaggerations such as that Qatar practiced work without pay on workers or modern-day slavery, the observatory added.
It said workers conditions in Qatar can not be classified as a work without pay system or slavery, stressing that there is no denial of salaries or forced labour.
It called on all parties to put the rights of migrant workers as a top priority away from any other purposes and also called on concerned government bodies and institutionsin the State of Qatar to exert further efforts towards the elimination of all the challenges facing migrant workers.
The observatory confirmed that it will dispatch a fact-finding mission to visit migrant communities in the Arab Gulf region to closely examine the reality and challenges, and subsequently furnish a report to the concerned Arab and international organizations and to the public on the reality of labour in the Gulf, calling on Arab governments to facilitate the tasks of Arab teams to render them more impartial, fairer and more aware of the reality of labour in the Arab region.
QNA
