Prompted by international scrutiny of working conditions on flagship projects in Qatar and the UAE, in 2016, the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre surveyed construction companies on their approach to safeguarding migrant workers’ rights in both countries.
Two years on and with a second survey, the findings show that while a consistent but small group of construction companies demonstrate real commitment to tackling the risks to migrant workers in their operations, the overwhelming majority operate with high risks to human rights and continued disregard for workers’ welfare. In both years, more than 70% of surveyed companies did not respond and over 60% did not have a public commitment to human rights.
This briefing analyses the survey responses and public human rights commitments of construction companies with current projects in the region and makes recommendations to companies, clients and governments to advance the rights of migrant workers.
An overview of the risks to migrant workers on construction projects across the Gulf. Migrant workers make up between 60% and 90% of the workforce in the six countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). Low-wage construction workers are at...
Business & Human Rights Resource Centre has quizzed 100 construction companies operating in Qatar and the UAE on the measures they are taking to stop exploitation of migrant workers. Only 22 responded, indicating a shocking level of inaction. Despite increasing...
This report gives an insight into the link between corporate practices in the Arabian Gulf’s engineering and construction sector and the recruitment – in South Asian countries like India and Bangladesh – of many of the migrant workers who staff the industry’s projects.
The progressive responses by some businesses to the Black Lives Matter protests, and the systemic racism they are calling attention to, have been framed as voluntary commitments of socially conscious companies. In fact, all businesses have an ironcl...Read More
The following criteria can be used by any organization to help it design an effective and transparent system for preventing human trafficking in its operations and those of its supply chain. It can also be used by an organization or an independent t...Read More
Narratives of commercial gestational surrogacy (CGS) as ‘baby-selling’ often conflate or interchange the transfer of children born via surrogacy with trafficking in children or the sale of children, two sometimes overlapping but nonetheless dist...Read More
The OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises are recommendations addressed by governments to multinational enterprises operating in or from adhering countries. They provide non-binding principles and standards for responsible business conduct in...Read More
2025 © Copyright, RESPECT International. All Rights Reserved. Website Disclaimer | Privacy Policy
