Google – AFP, 17 February 2014
 |
File
picture shows a migrant labourer walking through a construction site in
the
Qatari capital Doha, on October 3, 2013 (Al-Watan Doha/AFP/File, Karim Jaafar)
|
New Delhi —
More than 450 Indian migrants working in Qatar have died in the last two years,
according to new data from the Gulf state which is under pressure over its
rights record ahead of the 2022 World Cup.
In response
to a Right to Information request filed by AFP, the Indian embassy in Qatar
gave figures detailing the number of deaths in 2012 and the first 11 months of
2013.
On average
about 20 migrants died per month, peaking at 27 in August last year. There were
237 fatalities in 2012 and another 218 in 2013 up to December 5.
 |
A
computer-generated image released by
the Organising Committee of Qatar 2022
shows the stadium to be built in Al-Wakrah
for the 2022 World Cup (Qatar 2022
committee/AFP/File)
|
The bad
publicity surrounding Qatar's record on worker rights has until now mostly been
focused on Nepalese workers whose plight has been highlighted in a string of
media reports.
An official
at the Nepalese embassy in Doha told AFP last month that 191 deaths had been
registered in 2013, many of them from "unnatural" heart failure,
compared with 169 the year before.
One
construction worker who spoke to AFP after returning to Nepal said he had had
his passport confiscated and was forced to work from dawn to dusk, often
without a protective helmet or gloves.
The
Guardian newspaper group reported at the weekend that human rights group
Pravasi Nepali Co-ordination Committee had concluded that 400 Nepalese workers
had died on Qatar's building sites.
- South
Asian workers -
Most of the
labourers working on the new stadiums and vast infrastructure projects ahead of
football's biggest tournament in the wealthy Gulf state are from South Asia.
"Qatar
is choosing to prolong the system of modern slavery which is the root cause of
the incredibly high death toll for workers," ITUC secretary general Sharan
Burrow told AFP in a statement.
The ITUC,
which has pioneered opposition to Qatari labour law, estimates that as many as
4,000 workers might die on World Cup building sites before a ball is kicked in
2022.
Oil- and
gas-rich Qatar has a "kafala" system which means migrants are
sponsored by an individual who then exerts enormous control over their lives
and leaves some workers trapped.
The case of
French footballer Zahir Belounis highlighted the system last year when he
finally left Doha after being stranded for a year as his club Al-Jaish had
refused to grant him an exit permit.
 |
Theo
Zwanziger, member of the FIFA
Executive Committee, after a meeting on
the
situation of migrant workers in Qatar,
at EU Headquarters in Brussels on
February 13, 2014 (AFP/File, John Thys)
|
Amnesty
International said in November that workers were being treated like
"animals," and urged football's world governing body FIFA to press
Qatar to improve conditions.
FIFA
executive committee member Theo Zwanziger said last Thursday that the World Cup
could help improve the country's "appalling" human rights record by
inviting closer scrutiny.
The embassy
in Qatar says that the exact number of Indians in Qatar is unknown, but it was
estimated at close to 500,000 at the end of 2012, about 26 percent of Qatar's
total population.
Under
India's Right to Information law, government bodies are bound to hand over
information requested by members of the public or journalists providing it is
not harmful to the national interest.
AFP also
asked to see any any correspondence between the embassy and the Indian
government regarding the treatment of its nationals, but this request was
declined.
An Indian
foreign ministry was not immediately available for comment.
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