FIFA, Qatar and thousands of dead workers
Qatar’s construction frenzy ahead of the 2022 World Cup costs the lives of at least 4,000 migrant workers before a ball is kicked, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) claimed. In an early report, according to the established English newspaper Guardian, the officials warned that no measure were taken to protect the life of workers. The group had been scrutinising builders’ deaths in the Gulf emirate and said that at least half a million extra workers from countries including Nepal, India and Sri Lanka were expected to flood in to complete stadiums, hotels and infrastructure in time for the World Cup kickoff. The annual death toll among those working on building sites had been predicted to rise to 600 a year – almost a dozen a week – unless the Doha government made urgent reforms. The ITUC had based the estimates on mortality figures for Nepalese and Indian workers who form the bulk of Qatar’s 1.2 million-strong migrant workforce, the large majority of whom are builders.
Films that describe working conditions, reveal that the workers who die at large numbers, are not even paid in many cases.
Official statistics are very rare and slow released. According to worldpoliticsreview, in 2017, 322 non-Qataris under the age of 50 (a demographic that is largely made up of migrant workers) died in Qatar from cardiovascular complications, “acute respiratory failure,” or ‘other unexplained’ causes, pointing to working accidents. Revealingly, according to data from Qatar’s Ministry of Development Planning and Statistics, most of these deaths were among laborers working the most physically demanding, lowest-paying jobs, such as on construction crews, machine operators and in other “elementary occupations.”
Although a spokesman for the Qatar 2022 supreme committee said that organisers were “appalled” by the the Guardian’s revelations about the deaths of Nepalese workers who traveled to Qatar to work, it seems like few steps have been taken, and people continues to die.
High coronavirus incidents
These news are very worrying, as there are very robust indications that the conditions of life now become threatening, under also the luck of any measures to contain the spread of covid-19. Yesterday, a plane from Qatar that landed in Athens, Greece was found to be full of people who contracted corona-virus! Greek authorities found, in particular, that 12 out of 91 people on a Qatar Airways flight that arrived on Monday had tested positive for COVID-19. Due to this highly alarming fact, the Greek authorities , following these epidemiological facts, had to suspend flights from and to Qatar until June 15 to protect the health of Greek and EU citizens. Among those that tested positive on Monday’s flight were nine Pakistani workers, the statement added.
Despite the small population of Qatar (2.8 million) and the lack of adequate measures and tests , 60,259 cases had been recorded already. Qatar, now has a whopping 21.4 thousand coronavirus cases per million of population, that is 10 times that of Turkey, the later already ranks 1st in total number of coronavirus cases in Asia. Admittedly whilst Turkey hides consistently corona-virus statistics, it has already recorded 170,000 cases and more than 4,000 deaths. Qatar coronavirus cases are more than 100 times the Greek rate (only 250 cases per million, and overall just 179 deaths, and no new deaths during the last days).
This indicates that working conditions in Qatar coupled with high health risks from corona-virus make the country a very risky place to work, and recently also a risky place for businesses or traveling due to lack of corona-virus preventive plan.
new-economy.gr