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written agreements into real, effective protection for workers. As a start, the government
should require employers to obtain notarized statements from recruiting agents, in Qatar
and abroad, verifying that they have not charged any workers they have recruited for the
country with any recruiting fees.
In addition, though the Qatari government response pinned responsibility for the problem
of workers’ recruitment fees almost exclusively upon agencies abroad and protection gaps
in labor-sending countries, a recent World Bank study indicates that, in some cases, the
fees paid outside of Qatar appear to go to Qatari agencies in the end. A 2011 World Bank
study on migration from Nepal to Qatar estimated that 43 percent of the fees workers paid
to recruitment agencies in Nepal actually went to middlemen or recruitment agencies in
Qatar, compared to the 12 percent that went to Nepali agents. 105 Qatari law also does not
specifically require employers to pay all employment-related recruiting fees, regardless of
where they are charged, or to reimburse workers for any such fees they may have paid
before migrating. 106
It appears that in fact some Qatari recruiting agencies deliberately hide the profits they
make when workers pay recruiting fees to evade penalties under the Labor Law. The World
Bank study found that Nepali recruitment agencies regularly send commissions to
agencies in Qatar through informal transfers so as to avoid payment records, and to work
around the law prohibiting them from receiving fees from workers. The study estimated
that agents in Qatar receive between US$17 million and $34 million in commissions from
Nepal each year. 107 “Legally, you can put in the agency agreement that the employer should
pay [all recruitment expenses],” a recruitment agent in Qatar told Human Rights Watch,
“but most [employers] say ‘let the worker pay.’ They want the worker to take the loan over
there, pay [his] ticket, pay [the recruitment] fees to the agency.” 108
In order to pay recruitment fees in their home countries, workers we interviewed said that
they sold their most valuable assets or mortgaged family property, taking loans at high
interest rates from private money lenders. Ashok P., a 40-year-old worker from Sri Lanka,
105 The World Bank, The Qatar-Nepal Remittance Corridor: Enhancing the Impact and Integrity of Remittance Flows by
Reducing Inefficiencies in the Migration Process, (Washington DC: World Bank, 2011), p.9.
106 Law No.24 of 2004, art.33.1.
107 Ibid, p.12
108 Human Rights Watch interview with Ramsi G., Doha, May 30, 2011.
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