Qatar’s Side B: Precarious Working Conditions, Abuses Against Women, and Controversial Legislation

That Peru is struggling to qualify for the World Cup Qatar 2022 it does not make us forget the problems that the host country is dragging along. And they are not minor: let us remember that Amnesty International, after it was announced that the event was moving there, maintained that this would be the “world cup of shame”.

AI was referring to the working conditions of those responsible for building some of the stadiums. Who were these people? “Migrants from Bangladeshi, India Y Nepal working on the reform of the emblematic khalifa stadium and the landscaping of the sports facilities and surrounding green areas, the so-called ‘Aspire Zone’”the organization wrote in 2016.

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All of them were exploited: “Some are subjected to forced labor. They cannot change jobs, they cannot leave the country and they often have to wait months to collect their salaries.”.

It was the only way that Qatar 2022 could quickly fulfill its motto: “wait for the amazing”.

In April of this year, the BBC recalled that, for the World Cup, the nation had to build “new stadiums, an airport, a subway system and several highways”, and highlighted the criticism for the treatment of the “30,000 foreigners” who worked on those projects.

Because, despite the fact that in 2017 the Qatari government “implemented measures to protect these workers from excessive heat, limit their working hours and improve conditions in the places where they lived”, the abuses continued.

The BBC writes: “Human Rights Watch pointed out in 2021 that foreign workers were subjected to ‘illegal and punitive salary deductions’, as well as ‘months of unpaid wages after long hours of exhausting work’”.

“That year, the British press claimed that 6,500 of these workers – from India, PakistanNepalese, Bangladeshi and Sri Lanka– had died in Qatar since the country achieved the candidacy”, added the medium.

Qatar disagrees. For them, between 2014 and 2020 only 37 workers died “linked to the construction of the stadiums”.

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The LGBT community

In Qatar, homosexuality is illegal.

Although the World Cup was about improving the status of the rights of the LGBT community -and preventing attacks against, harassment or arrest-, the country did not give so much importance to the matter.

Because Qatar is a fairly conservative country, to the point that there is a dress code in public spaces. What the authorities want to avoid is the use of “revealing clothing”.

Infobae collects that they cannot be used “skirts, leggings, ripped jeans, dresses or shorts that are too short”; are also not admittedvery pronounced necklines or that expose a lot of skin on the arms”, “garments that have offensive phrases or messages”.

However, the media indicated that, according to “the country’s official platform to boost tourism“, the “measures are not strict for visitors, considering their culture and the hot weather that will receive them when they arrive in Doha”.

Image from 2015 showing the construction of the Al-Wakra Stadium, in Doha. AP (Maya Alleruzzo/)

women’s rights

“Qatar’s discriminatory male guardianship system denies women the right to make key decisions about their lives”, he maintains Human Rights Watch.

The NGO talks about male guardianship.

In Qatar, women need permission from their “male tutors to marry, study abroad on government scholarships, access many government jobs, travel abroad up to a certain age, and receive some forms of reproductive health care”.

Of course, it is impossible for them to be primary guardians of their children, even though “are divorced and have legal custody” or if the father is deceased.

HRW adds: “In 2020, women traveling without a male relative were detained by airport officials, who insisted on calling their male guardian to prove they were not ‘escaping’‘”.

“Some hotels prohibit single Qatari women under the age of 30 from renting a room if they are not accompanied by a male relative, and Qatari women are prohibited from attending certain events and entering places where alcohol is served.”.

Of course he alcohol it is forbidden for most Qataris. Only the wealthiest who visit certain places have access.

One of the women who suffered from this system was the Mexican Paola Schietekat. In February of this year and after denouncing that he was the victim of sexual abuseshe was sentenced to one hundred lashes and seven years in prison.

Schietekat denounced with evidence and to the police that a man entered her room and raped her. Within hours, the authorities summoned her and forced her to confront the aggressor. To defend himself against her, the man maintained that “she was his sentimental partner”.

“El País” notes that Qatari Islamic law “is one of the most liberal among the Muslim community”, because women can “can drive, are not required to wear a veil and have access to higher education”. “However, all those who are victims of sexual violence are judged for adultery”.

Precisely, Schietekat was declared “guilty of having an extramarital affair”.

A similar situation was experienced in 2016 by a tourist from Netherlands. After being raped by a Qatari, she was sentenced to one year in jail – later reduced to three months – and to pay US$845.

The bogus prosperity

At what point did Qatar become such a powerful country that even FIFA makes it obvious that its laws violate international law?

Mohamed Badine El Yattioui, Professor of International Relations at the American University in the Emiratesremember that Qatar took advantage of the money obtained from the sale of the gas/oil to invest in various businesses.

“It became a luxurious country because there was a strategy developed by the ruling family, a strategy based on investment in various sectors. For example, in media with Al-Jazeerafootball clubs like Paris Saint-Germainetc.”.

This happened, says the specialist, during the second part of the 90s because “there was a will to transform that small country that nobody knew, but that had riches, into something bigger”.

Because even before this plan, Qatar was just another country in the great desert.

For the BBC, countries like Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait Y “other Sunni Muslim monarchies of the Persian Gulf” experienced similar processes.

The bonanza, adds the media, happened thanks to the ability of the rulers to “redistribute oil revenues among various interest groups and transform remaining surpluses into valuable assets, such as real estate, art, and stocks”.

The Yattioui notes:

“The income served to raise the quality of life of its population, which is very small. They are about a million Qataris. This allows them to have many economic and social benefits.”.

“The other consequence of this process was investment in infrastructure, a way of showing its capital Doha as one of the most luxurious in the world”.

And, of course, turn it into the venue for events such as the UN Climate Change Summit.

“After the designation of Qatar as the venue for the World Cup, many NGOs began to observe what was happening in the country. What they discovered was that labor rights did not correspond to what the International Labor Organization and with the Qatari objective of increasing its influence in the region and the world, and that affected its image”.

Can abuses against women and minorities be explained by religion?

“It is not religion as such, but an interpretation of religion. Qatar is a country like Saudi Arabia, that is, with a very rigorous view of the Muslim religion. In that sense, the criminal code is quite conservative, which allows us to understand how the Mexican case ended that way.”.

“Qatar is not a democracy and should not be thought of according to Western criteria of separation of powers. Power is concentrated in the hands of a family, a model that exists in all the Gulf countries and is bedouin and tribal tradition”.

The Yattioui concludes: “And it has been that same concentration of wealth that allowed the ruling family to invest in the stability of the country, ensuring that the vast majority of its citizens live in luxury.”.

Source: Elcomercio