The findings in this report show that across Qatar, independent employers, as well as those operating labor supply companies, frequently delay, withhold, or arbitrarily deduct workers’ wages. Employers often withhold contractually guaranteed overtime payments and end-of service benefits, and they regularly violate their contracts with migrant workers with impunity. In the worst cases, workers told Human Rights Watch that employers simply stopped paying their wages, and they often struggled to feed themselves. Taking employers and their companies to the Labour Relations department or the Labour Dispute Resolution Committees is difficult, costly, time-consuming, ineffective, and can often result in retaliation. Workers often describe taking legal action as a “Catch-22” situation – indebted if you do, indebted if you don’t.

The Covid-19 pandemic has amplified the ways in which migrant workers’ rights to wages have long been violated. While none of the wage-related problems migrant workers are facing under Covid-19 are novel — delayed wages, unpaid wages, forceful terminations, repatriation without receiving end-of-service benefits, delayed access to justice regarding wages, arbitrary deductions from salaries — since the pandemic first appeared in Qatar, these abuses have appeared more frequently. Available in Arabic (see below.)

How Can We Work Without Wages? Salary Abuses Facing Migrant Workers Ahead of Qatar's FIFA World Cup 2022 - Human Rights Watch, 2020 - Arabic DOWNLOAD
How Can We Work Without Wages? Salary Abuses Facing Migrant Workers Ahead of Qatar's FIFA World Cup 2022 - Human Rights Watch, 2020 - English DOWNLOAD

post

page

attachment

revision

nav_menu_item

custom_css

customize_changeset

oembed_cache

user_request

wp_block

wp_template

wp_template_part

wp_global_styles

wp_navigation

wp_font_family

wp_font_face

acf-taxonomy

acf-post-type

acf-field-group

acf-field

ai1ec_event

exactmetrics_note

Guidance on responding to victims in forced scam labour
Guidance

In September 2022, HRC published a briefing addressing the emerging organised crime of victims systematically trafficked to scamming compounds in Southeast Asia. The briefing led to many inquiries from journalists and a subsequent growth in media co...Read More

TAGS:
Forced to beg Child trafficking from Guinea-Bissau to Senegal
GuidancePublications

Taking children from Guinea-Bissau to Senegal and forcing them to beg on the streets has become the most visible form of human trafficking in both countries. Many Quranic teachers and intermediaries’ prey on vulnerable families in Guinea-Bissau. O...Read More

TAGS: Africa
Does Human Trafficking Exist in Your Community?: Examining Reports and Reviewing Facts
Guidance

A reference tool to assist community actors in finding reliable sources of data about human trafficking incidents in their area.

Addressing the Human Cost of Assam Tea: An agenda for change to respect, protect and fulfill human rights on Assam tea plantations
GuidancePublications

Workers on tea plantations in the Assam region of India are systematically denied their rights to a living wage and decent working and living conditions. The fact that they are unable to meet their basic living costs is starkly illustrated by our fi...Read More