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The World Cup Qatar 2022 continues to cause controversy a few days after starting. This Wednesday the 9th, the construction company Vinci must appear in court before a judge Frenchwho will determine whether he is guilty of keeping his employees in poor working conditions in Qatar.
The EFE agency notes that it was the NGO Sherpa the one that accused the company in 2014. To show that they did not respect human rights and abuses occurred, they collected testimonies “on the working conditions in some works in charge” of its subsidiary in qatar. Thus, cases of people who worked under more than 45 ° C were recorded “not enough water or shade“, They had “little access to showers in their homes” or that their passports were withheld, among other excesses.
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Vinci has denied the charges against its questioned subsidiary, QDVC. In addition, she accuses that she was not properly informed of the case and regretted that this happened just before the World Cup Qatar 2022 starts because the matter will be mediated, which will be “unfavorable for the serenity of the debates”.
Silence of brands and companies
Complaints against abusive companies in Qatar increased in the context of the organization of the World Cup Qatar 2022, given that the country had to rush to build the necessary infrastructure for the event. In response, from International Amnesty the brands involved were asked to take action and ask the FIFA to take action on the matter.
For September,AB InBev/Budweiser, Adidas, Coca-Cola, and McDonald’s” -brands that sponsor the event- declared that they supported FIFA “offer reparation for the abuses suffered by migrant workers”. “Ten other sponsors have not publicly shown their support or responded to written requests to speak out about tournament-related abuses. These companies are Visa, Hyundai-Kia, Wanda Group, Qatar Energy, Qatar Airways, Vivo, Hisense, Mengniu, Crypto and Byju’s”, the NGO wrote.
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Human Rights Watch He also denounced that there were companies that did not pay their employees. For March, HRW maintained that Bin Omran Trading and Contracting (BOTC) had not paid their workers their salaries for a long time 5 months. He also added that, despite the complaints, the authorities were not taking action.
“In December 2020, Human Rights Watch also reported on similar cases in which wages went unpaid for hundreds of workers at two companies –Imperial Trading and Construction Company (ITCC) and Lalibela Cleaning and Services– for months, despite the fact that the authorities had been informed several times about these abuses”, writes the NGO.
The hotel conglomerates have not been spared from the investigations either. the NGO equidem interviewed “80 workers from establishments in the Persian Gulf region, the majority from 13 of the 17 hotel groups that have association agreements with the organization of the event”, and discovered the mistreatment they suffer.
“Among the abuses that these employees denounce are salary discrimination based on nationality and ethnicity, non-payment and unilateral salary cuts, overload of work, sexual harassment of women by their colleagues or termination of the contract. without prior notice or the lack of adequate sanitary measures”, he warns.
Source: Elcomercio
I, Ronald Payne, am a journalist and author who dedicated his life to telling the stories that need to be said. I have over 7 years of experience as a reporter and editor, covering everything from politics to business to crime.
