Six months before the FIFA World Cup in Qatar (November 21-December 18), the NGO Amnesty International released a report on Thursday May 19 on violations of ” human rights “ of which are victims “several hundred thousand” construction workers in the emirate.
This 62-page document, which The world has consulted, lists the “responsibilities”over a decade, of the International Football Federation (FIFA) in these “multiple serious and widespread abuses and violations of labor rights” : “payments of exorbitant and illegal recruitment fees not reimbursed”, “scams by abusive employers”, ” excessive hours », “forced labor”, “deaths which have rarely been investigated” and did not lead to compensation for the families of the victims.
“By awarding the World Cup to Qatar [le 2 décembre 2010] without enacting conditions or safeguards to enhance labor law protections, and subsequently failing to properly prevent or mitigate human rights violations, FIFA has contributed to a wide range of abuses to labor law that were avoidable and foreseeable (…) and paved the way for further violations,” affirms Amnesty International, which produced its report on the basis, in particular, of documents from FIFA, the Qatari organizing committee of the 2022 World Cup, and other international bodies, such as the UN or the International Labor Organization (ILO ).
FIFA accused of having discarded
The NGO recalls that the ” choice ” of Qatar in 2010 was “very controversial due to allegations of corruption, extreme heat and its disastrous human rights record”. “The risks for the workers were not even taken into account during the selection process of the host country” and were not included in the FIFA evaluation report, when the ” sanitary risks ” relating to the “extreme heat” have been taken into account for the “players, spectators, officials and the FIFA family. »
While the kafala system, which placed migrant workers under guardianship, remained in force in Qatar “until the end of 2018” and despite the “advanced”, the NGO accuses FIFA of not having neither prevented nor mitigated the risks of workplace abuse in the years following the awarding of the World Cup. »
She criticizes him for having waited until 2020 to exhibit ” its responsibilities precisely in the context “of the 2022 World Cup” through a long-term sustainability strategy and not having, for a long time, “publicly accepted any responsibility for the situation of migrant workers in the country”. “The measures taken proved to be too late and limited”considers the NGO.
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