Ahead of the football World Cup slated to be held from November 2022 onwards, the Qatari government reportedly deported Bangladeshi migrant workers for staging a rare protest against unpaid wages as per a labour rights group said on Monday.<\/p>\n
During the protest earlier this month in Doha, at least 60 workers — including some who had reportedly not been paid for seven months — held up traffic outside the Al Bandary company, AFP reported citing Equidem, a London-based labour rights campaign organization.<\/p>\n
“We have spoken to workers involved in the protests (including) one who has been deported back to Nepal, and confirmed he has returned,” said Equidem head Mustafa Qadri said.<\/p>\n
“Others from Nepal, Bangladesh, India, Egypt and the Philippines have also been deported,” he added.<\/p>\n
Qatar’s government, which has faced an intense spotlight over the treatment of migrants, has confirmed that some of the workers who took part in the August 14 protest were detained, but has given no details as to whether they have been expelled.<\/p>\n
Qatar’s government said on Sunday that “a number of protesters were detained for breaching public security laws.”<\/p>\n
It added that “a minority of protesters who failed to remain peaceful and acted in breach of Qatar’s public security laws face deportation by court order.”<\/p>\n
However, it did not give details of how many workers it involved.<\/p>\n
The labour ministry said it is paying salaries and benefits owed to Al Bandary workers. It added that “further action” was being taken against the company, which was already under investigation for failing to pay wages.<\/p>\n
Qatar has faced accusations of under-reporting deaths among migrant workers and of not doing enough to alleviate harsh conditions. Unpaid wages have also been frequently raised.<\/p>\n
An investigation by The Guardian last year revealed at least 1,018 migrant workers from Bangladesh have died in Qatar since it won the right to host the Fifa World Cup in 2010.<\/p>\n
The FIFA World Cup starts in the tiny energy-rich state on November 20.<\/p>\n
Data compiled by the British daily showed an average of 12 migrant workers from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka have died each week in the period between 2011 and 2020.<\/p>\n
According to the Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training, 821,856 Bangladeshi workers are employed in Qatar as of July this year.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Qatari Labour Minister Dr Ali bin Saeed bin Al Samikh Al Marri on Sunday said the gulf nation is going to take more workers from Bangladesh in the field of nursing, hospitality, construction, service, and IT sectors.<\/p>\n
In a meeting with Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister Imran Ahmad, Marri expressed his satisfaction with the Bangladeshi expatriate workers in Qatar and appreciated their role in developing the economy of various countries in the Middle East, UNB reports.<\/p>\n
“The workers of Bangladesh are very hardworking and responsible,” he said.<\/p>\n
While rights groups have stepped up their campaigns ahead of the World Cup and called on FIFA to pay compensation to workers, the government has highlighted major reforms it has introduced.<\/p>\n
It has introduced a minimum wage, dismantled a scheme that gave employers stringent rights over workers, and toughened rules on working in summer heat.<\/p>\n
The minister on Sunday said foreign workers will be eligible to get all the benefits like domestic workers as the labour law of Qatar has been amended.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ahead of the football World Cup slated to be held from November 2022 onwards, the Qatari government reportedly deported Bangladeshi migrant workers for staging a rare protest against unpaid wages as per a labour rights group said on Monday. During the protest earlier this month in Doha, at least 60 workers — including some who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1949,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-national"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialherald.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialherald.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialherald.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialherald.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialherald.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1948"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/financialherald.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1948\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1950,"href":"https:\/\/financialherald.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1948\/revisions\/1950"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialherald.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialherald.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialherald.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialherald.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}