Download the full report - Human Rights Watch

Provisions on health and safety require employers to provide workers with safety
equipment and inform them of occupational hazards, provide first aid equipment, and
provide a full-time nurse for companies with more than 100 employees, or a clinic with a
nurse and doctor for companies with more than 500 employees. 59 The law also requires
employers to report workplace injuries or deaths to the police and the Labor Department. 60
However, Qatar does not publicly report data on workplace injuries and deaths. In a letter
dated September 27, Human Rights Watch requested government data on the number of
injuries and fatalities reported on construction sites over the past three years. In its reply,
the Ministry of Labor stated that “over the last three years, there have been no more than 6
cases of worker deaths. The causes are falls.” This number falls significantly below the
annual number or worker deaths reported by just one labor-sending country’s embassy in
Doha. While the reply added that officials had provided information on worker injuries in
an attachment, the letter included no such attachment, and Human Rights Watch requests
for the data yielded no additional information. 61 Section VII of this report discusses health
and safety issues in further detail. Human Rights Watch has urged the government to make
public all data and information on worker deaths and injuries, including the causes and
places of death.
The Labor Law and accompanying regulations provide some strong, specific protections for
workers. The law exempts workers pursuing labor claims from all judicial fees. It includes
requirements on access to medical care, end-of-service payments, and annual leave, and
limits the amount employers can deduct from workers’ salaries. 62 The law provides workers
the right to terminate employment, but only for a limited set of reasons, and they must
follow administrative procedures to provide notice or secure government approval before
doing so; it grants workers full end-of-service bonus if the employer breaks his obligations
under the employment contract, endangers the worker’s health, assaults the worker, or
misrepresents contract terms. 63 However, many workers fail to benefit from these
provisions because of inadequate oversight and implementation. Section VII of this report
further addresses these problems.
59 Ibid., art.104.
60 Ibid., art.108.
61 Email from Human Rights Watch to Ghanem al-Merri and Mohammed Hassan al-Obaidli, November 18, 2011; Email from
Ghanem al-Merri to Human Rights Watch, December 1, 2011.
62 Ibid., art.s 54, 60, 78, 79, 104.
63 Ibid., art. 51.
41 HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH | JUNE 2012