‘6,500 Migrant Workers Die In Qatar For World Cup’
By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
(Worthy News) – More than 6,500 migrant workers from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka have reportedly died in Qatar since it won the right to host soccer’s 2022 World Cup, fueling calls to boycott the event.
The Guardian newspaper’s investigation suggested the shocking death toll around the construction of stadiums and other facilities was likely grossly underestimated. No figures were available for migrant deaths from the workers from Kenya or the Philippines. Deaths occurring in the final months of 2020 are also not included.
Rights groups have linked most deaths to horrific slave-labor working conditions in the notorious heat. Abuses and a lack of training are other factors. Among migrant workers suffering are Christians, suggested aid, and advocacy group Open Doors.
“Many migrant workers (of any faith) are mistreated and abused,” it noted in a recent assessment seen by Worthy News. However,” Christian migrant workers may be doubly targeted for this type of abuse because of their job and faith. And even though the government provides land for migrant Christians to build churches, churches are often monitored and kept to specific areas.”
It also warned that “Muslims who convert to Christianity face much more significant persecution.” Migrants speaking about their faith to
Muslims could face deportation, according to Open Doors investigators.
Rights activists and reporters also confirmed that many workers live in labor camps far away from their worksite. Once they arrive at the labor camps, they live in squalid conditions, with up to a dozen men sharing a room, unhygienic toilets, and kitchens.
QATAR DENIAL
The impoverished migrants often receive far less money than what was promised. Qatar, a gas-rich peninsula in the Gulf, has said that it was committed to labor reforms but added that “lasting changes” take time.
Massive development work is underway in addition to the conversion of the Khalifa Stadium and the construction of seven other World Cup-level stadiums. Additionally, a new airport, new hotels, new roads, public transportation, and an entirely new city are being built just for the World Cup final celebrations.
The findings, compiled from government sources, mean an average of 12 migrant workers from five south Asian nations had died each week since the night in December 2010 when the streets of Doha were filled with ecstatic crowds celebrating Qatar’s victory.
Data from India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka revealed 5,927 deaths of migrant workers in the period 2011–2020, The Guardian reported. Separately, data from Pakistan’s embassy in Qatar reported a further 824 deaths of Pakistani workers between 2010 and 2020.
The many people who died included Mohammad Shahid Miah, 29, from Bangladesh. He died when floodwater in his room came into contact with an exposed electric cable, electrocuting him.
The revelations have fueled a debate whether soccer players should boycott the first World Cup ever to be held in the Arab world and the first in a Muslim-majority nation.
BOYCOTT HELPFUL?
Rights groups have mixed feelings about a total boycott, fearing it would force already struggling migrant workers to leave and not receive payments.
But in the Netherlands, the Godfather of sports journalism, Johan Derksen, suggested that the soccer (or football) world should not gather for a party that cost the lives of 6,500 migrants. “Thousands of people are dying there,” Derksen told the Dutch “Veronica Inside” television program. He said it underscored broader concerns about rights violations in the Arabic country.
“The English newspaper The Guardian gave the figures. There are not 2 to 3000 deaths but many more.” He condemned what he views as the selective anger after police abuses in the United States or a joke he made about a black rapper in the Netherlands.
“We all feel bad when human rights are violated in other cases. But if the victims come from Pakistan or Afghanistan, it seems that isn’t it that bad?”
He urged the Dutch national team, or at least one or more famed players, to stay home. “That would be world news. That has never happened.”
He also condemned brothers Ronald and Frank de Boer, who made their names in soccer. Ronald de Boer was also an ambassador of Qatar’s World Cup. “They both received a lot of money when they played there and now,” explained well-informed Derksen. “When Frank is asked about this, he says: ‘politics and sports you have to separate and ‘politics I don’t get involved.”
Derksen strongly disagrees. “Politics and sports have everything to do with each other. Just look at 1936 with Adolf Hitler [hosting the Olympic Games] and in 1978 with the World Cup [under dictator] Jorge Videla in Argentina.”
He said everything is about money and that people just look away.
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