In Doha, with temperatures around 50 degrees, they are the only ones to work outside, very far from their home in Nepal. Many of these World Cup convicts remain away from their homes for years, but some do not return and die on the job… Delivered into poverty, their families then have to fight for compensation. Excerpt from a report by “Special Envoy”.
On May 12, 2022, Ganga Sahani was found dead on a construction site in Doha. This 52-year-old Nepalese mason adds to the list of foreign workers who died in Qatar: more than 15,000 in ten years, all nationalities combined, according to official statistics from the emirate.
Ganga’s death certificate, issued by Qatar, bears the usual conclusion in such cases: “iAcute heart failure, cause of natural death”. However, for his son Ram, this drama is not natural. “I think my father died because it became too difficult for him to work there, he says in “Special Envoy”. The temperatures were really, really high, and there was a lot of pressure on the job: they all had to rush to finish everything in time for the World Cup.”
Benefits paid six years after death
Now alone to provide for his mother, his wife and his son, the young man has initiated proceedings for his family to be compensated. He carefully gathered all the documents concerning his father, not forgetting the photo that a colleague of Ganga took of his lifeless body, at the foot of a scaffolding: this image constitutes proof that his father died at his place of residence. work,” explains the lawyer handling the case. He is the local head of a Nepalese NGO which fights for the rights of these convicts from the Gulf. Since 2011, the organization has managed more than 28,000 complaints against employers in the Gulf countries: non-payment of wages, injuries, deaths, etc.
In 2018, Qatar set up a compensation fund for workers in the event of employer default. That of Ganga Sahani is a big company that only paid 4,000 euros to her family, while according to the lawyer, she owes her more compensation and damages. The NGO is confident because it has just obtained a victory for the family of another worker who died in Qatar in 2016. The Qatari government has finally paid, six years later, the equivalent of 45,000 euros. The cost of a Nepalese worker’s life in Qatar…
Excerpt from “Nepal : the convicts of the World”, a report to see in “Special Envoy” on November 3, 2022.
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