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March 25th, 2016 
Awake Goy Qatar has been given 12 months to end migrant worker slavery or face a possible United Nations investigation.
The warning sets the 2022 World Cup host nation on a path to becoming only the fifth ever country to face a formal inquiry by the UN’s International Labour Organisation into allegations of forced labour after Burma, Haiti, Liberia and Portugal. It could ultimately pave the way for international sanctions.
The move follows a ILO delegation to the Gulf state this month that found migrant workers stranded for months without pay and stripped of their passports. The delegation, led by the Japanese ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, Misako Kaji, met undocumented workers who had no access to free healthcare and were deep in debt. They also saw workers’ accommodation that did “not satisfy by far the minimum standards, with most accommodation housing 10 to 12 workers per small room [and with] unhygienic and poor kitchen and sanitary facilities”.
The ILO has told Qatar to act on its warnings about the treatment of the most vulnerable workers and prove its proposed law changes are working or it could decide in March 2017 to launch a “commission of inquiry”.
Qatar has promised to introduce a new law later this year to end the kafala system under which migrant workers can only work for their sponsor and have no freedom to change employer or leave the country without their employers’ approval. Human rights campaigners have complained this allows conditions that amount to modern day slavery for many of the migrant worker population of more than 1.5 million in Qatar.
The Qatar prime minister, Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani, reportedly admitted to the ILO that Qatar faced “a big challenge on the labour front”, but he claimed the main issues today relate to recruitment practices in labour-sending countries.
The delegation found that Qatar is not doing enough to stop passports being confiscated or to stop workers being forced to pay high recruitment fees, which often place them heavily in debt.
The action comes in response to a complaint from a dozen countries including the UK, France, Pakistan and Canada, that Qatar is failing to observe the UN convention on forced labour.
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