Right activists dismiss Qatar labor reforms

Workers at a bay. (Xinhua/Pan Chaoyue)

Rights groups on Wednesday criticized reforms of Qatar’s “kafala” labor system for foreign workers, which critics have likened to modern-day slavery, as an AFP report shows.

Qatar’s prince, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, approved on Tuesday a new law overseeing the sponsorship “kafala” system – which currently only allows workers to leave the country with the approval of their employer – as well as rules that allow workers to switch jobs. They also removed the word “sponsor” from the changes.

But activists said the changes were unlikely to make any real difference for the thousands of foreign workers in the Gulf state, many of whom are preparing facilities for Qatar’s hosting of football’s 2022 World Cup.

Sharan Burrow, general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation, one of Qatar’s fiercest critics, said the latest changes were little more than “sham reforms”.

“The new labor law does not abolish the notorious exit permits, and workers still have to get their employers’ permission to leave the country,” she said.

The new rules require foreign workers wishing to leave Qatar to apply for permission from the interior ministry at least 72 hours beforehand.

Officials will then check with employers and if permission is denied, workers can complain to a grievance committee that will be established under the new law.

The changes also allow foreign workers to switch jobs at the end of a fixed-term contract, usually five years. It’s still not clear when these changes would take place, but they’re more likely to take place before 2017.

Under the current system, workers who leave a job at the end of a contract have to wait two years to return to Qatar to take up a new position, if the employer objects to the new job.

As a response, some businesses have lobbied for retention of the restrictions as they feared loosening of the sponsorship system would lead to them losing key staff during the duration of major infrastructure projects. Members of a Qatar business chamber argued earlier this year for fixed contracts to be extended to 10 years so that staff would not leave, according to local media.

Kafala is effective in almost all of the Gulf states, and it dictates that the employers has every right to control his foreign employees rights’ to travel from and in the country, or changing jobs. It had also included a number of mistreatment’s to foreigners such as low wages, non-human treatment under severe conditions, and the employees have very little to say in objection.

Kafala system faced fierce criticism from rights groups especially since a spotlight was on Qatar after winning the right to host the World Cup for 2020. The system applies to some 1.8 million foreign workers, who make up about 90 per cent of the population in the tiny Gulf state.

The number of foreign workers, many of them laborers on major infrastructure projects directly or indirectly related to the World Cup, is expected to reach 2.5 million by 2020.