behind the brand new stadiums and metro, exploited workers… and some social progress

New, beautiful, clean: this is what the FIFA World Cup in Qatar will look like, kicking off on November 21. Obviously starting with the stadiums, each one more majestic than the next. There are eight of them, six of which were built especially for the competition. Before the draw for the group stages begins on Friday April 1, we were able to visit that of Al Janoub.

It is located near the old fishing village of Al Wakrah, 23 km from Doha. The stands can accommodate 40,000 spectators. And when you enter it, you simply want to lie down on the lawn and let yourself be lulled by the story of the guide William Morales: “The stadium is inspired by the traditional Qatari fishing boat. If you turn the hull upside down, this is what you see from the sky, the waves are represented on the facade and the retractable roof represents the sails of the boat”. It’s poetic, it’s beautiful. The stadium is obviously air-conditioned and will be served by electric buses.

A World Cup is also all the surrounding infrastructure: hotels on the water, for example, but also and above all the metro. The Doha metro trains are a haven of peace. There is hardly anyone, the floor is shiny imitation parquet, the bars sparkle. On the quay, not waste but a maintenance worker who keeps watch. Everything shines, everything shines. And that’s exactly what the organizers wanted us to see.

At every street corner, there is a construction site and therefore workers, wearing a balaclava to protect themselves from the sun. Before the award in 2010, they were 1.2 million. Twelve years later, there are twice as many. We met, away from a construction site, Moussa, an Algerian in his forties who arrived in Doha five years ago: “People from my country go to Europe, to France. But I chose an Arab country, with the same religion.”

“I’m good here, I earn money and every month I can send it to my family, I have three children”.

Moussa, construction worker in Doha

at franceinfo

What Moussa describes may be true, the fate of workers depends a lot on their employer. But others are less fortunate, as they told us. Mouhamad, a taxi driver from Bangladesh, said he lived with five friends in a room and did not earn enough to support his family back home.

The spotlight brought by the football world on the situation of these workers has, however, made it possible to advance their cause in part. In Doha, everyone recognizes it, including the NGOs, Qatar is rather ahead today in the Gulf, in terms of labor rights. The “Kafala” – the guardianship of workers by their employer – was abolished in September 2020. Now, workers can leave pay or change jobs without the permission of their boss. A minimum wage has been introduced. It is now at 500 US dollars per month.

These reforms were carried out with the help of the International Labor Organization (ILO). This UN agency opened an office in Doha four years ago, under the direction of Max Tunon. He is both proud of the progress made and also aware of all the shortcomings: “Last year we set up an online complaints system and it is true that there are sometimes blockages by employers who threaten expulsion or termination of their residence permit. Unpaid wages too And with this information we work with the government, to ensure that more workers benefit from the reforms.”

The worst situations sometimes lead to deaths. But the count is complex. The famous investigation Guardian (article in English), a year ago, listed 6 500 dead since 2010. The International Labor Organization has made its calculations. Over one year – 2020 in this case – it has 50 deaths. The problem is that this system is not reliable, according to Lola Schulman, advocacy officer at Amnesty International France: “I think of a truck driver who worked twelve hours a day. There was no air conditioning in his truck and he was found dead in his room the next day after working fourteen hours in his truck without air conditioning, so that it was 40, 45 degrees. And it says on the death certificate ‘respiratory problems or cause unknown’.”

And the cause of death is far from a detail, because without written proof of the employer’s responsibility, the driver’s family could not claim compensation. She is also deprived of the savings sent to her by the deceased from Qatar and will have to go into debt to repatriate the body. It is essentially on this point that Amnesty International is asking for clarification from FIFA, but also from the FFF, the French football federation which, for the moment, has not responded to their request.