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 Human Rights Council unanimously endorsed the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) in 2011. More than 10 years later, this global standard for how business should respect human rights has driven some positive change. While ...Read More
This handbook aims to help parliamentarians to make their contribution to global efforts to effectively combat the scourge of forced labour, a scourge still affecting 25 million people globally. Despite the widespread belief that forced labour is...Read More
ECPAT International, ECPAT Taiwan and National Chung Cheng University in Taiwan are cooperating on a project to enhance global ethical practice in research on sexual exploitation involving children. As a first step, this paper identifies the critica...Read More
The fishing industry in Thailand fell under global scrutiny in 2014 for the significant human rights violations at sea. Personal stories of victims who had worked for years at sea with little food and constant physical abuse created enough global at...Read More
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