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signed contracts written in a language that they could understand that matched the
conditions they found upon arrival. In the worst cases, recruitment agents’ deception
and the disparity between what workers had been promised and what they found
amounted to conditions of human trafficking. Given the key role of the local organizing
committee, including to “creat[e] an enabling environment to organise and accomplish
the World Cup 2022 in all legal, regulatory, physical, social and economic development
aspects,” what concrete steps has the Supreme Committee taken, or do you plan to
take, to ensure that migrant workers employed on World Cup-related projects in Qatar
have been recruited in a manner that protects their rights? For example, what steps will
you take to ensure that workers have accurate and complete information about their
jobs, salaries, and benefits in a language they can understand prior to their migration?
• Human Rights Watch identified the huge recruitment fees workers pay, and the debts
they incur to cover migration costs, as a key factor keeping them in jobs even when
employers abused their rights. In the worst cases, employers’ failure to pay workers’
wages, combined with their grave need to pay off their loans, kept them in conditions
that met the definition of forced labor under international law. Nearly all of the
construction workers we interviewed paid recruitment fees in their home countries.
Given that forced labor is banned under international law as well as Qatari law, what is
your approach to addressing worker payment of recruitment fees? For example, will the
Supreme Committee take steps to ensure that the companies receiving contracts for
World Cup-related construction reimburse workers in cases where they have paid fees?
If so, please describe.
• Please share any relevant information on the Supreme Committee’s plans or existing
approach in relation to other issues arising in our research and described in the
attached summary of findings.
In light of our research documenting the prevalence of abusive conditions for workers in Qatar’s
construction industry, we strongly encourage all companies in that industry, as well as the
Supreme Committee itself, to publicly pledge to respect the rights of all workers associated with
their projects and to undertake concrete measures to prevent, mitigate and address abuses of
worker rights. The specific measures we recommend include action by all relevant actors to:
123 HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH | JUNE 2012