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Regarding the second question, on the authority of the Ministry to approve a change in
sponsor for any migrant worker if he faces arbitrary treatment by his sponsor, under Article
21, paragraph 2 of the law, the Human Rights Directorate is the competent body in the
Interior Ministry that applies this statute regarding any requests from a migrant worker to
permanently change sponsors, if indeed arbitrary treatment is proven, and this based on
clear standards established in coordination with the Labor Directorate and the National
Human Rights Committee. Over the last three years—2009, 2010, and 2011—there have
been 89 cases in which a migrant worker has permanently changed sponsors, as noted in
the appendix, which shows the cases in which permission was granted to change sponsors
due to arbitrary behavior, pursuant to the application of Law 4/2009, to the exclusion of
regular cases of the transfer of sponsorship.
Regarding the rejection of some requests in these cases and the reason for their rejection,
this is because no incidents were established that constitute arbitrary conduct. The
Ministry implements court rulings ordering the transfer of sponsorship in cases where such
rulings are issued.
Regarding the third question on the resolution of the status of workers who are reported by
their sponsors for leaving their jobs, or in cases of employers violating the conditions of
the labor contract or workers’ rights, the state of Qatar has regulated the relationship
between the sponsor (the employer) and the sponsee (the worker) by creating a balanced
relationship that allows no scope for the preferential treatment of either one. This is done
through a legal framework that specifies their rights and duties, as well as the penalties for
breaches of legal regulations. This is illustrated in most of the provisions of Law 4/2011
regulating the entry, exit, residence, and sponsorship of migrants, for example in the
provisions of Articles 12 and 57/4. This balance in reciprocal rights and duties is also
embodied in detail in the labor law (Law 14/2004).
We would like to note that according to the rules of legal and judicial proof, establishing
that either party to the labor relationship (the sponsor or the sponsee) has breached the
obligations and conditions of the labor contract is a matter for the competent labor court.
Until the dispute between the sponsor and sponsee is resolved by the court, which takes a
certain amount of time under regular judicial procedures, the worker will have been
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