Country Profile
New laws were passed offering migrant workers better legal protections. Despite government measures to control the spread of COVID-19, migrant workers bore the brunt of the pandemic’s impact. The authorities further tightened restrictions on freedom of expression. Women continued to face...
Qatar
Migrants
Security guards in Qatar are working in conditions which amount to forced labour, including on projects linked to the 2022 FIFA World Cup, Amnesty International has found. In a new report, They think that we’re machines, the organization documented the experiences of 34 current or...
April 7, 2022
Qatar
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
As part of its investigation into the treatment of migrant workers in Qatar’s private security sector, Amnesty international wrote to Qatar’s Ministry of Labour, seeking its response to allegations of labour abuse. These are the responses from the government. This is in relation to the briefing,...
April 7, 2022
Qatar
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
Amnesty International conducted research into the treatment of migrant workers in Qatar’s private security sector. As part of the research, Amnesty International contacted the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy (the Supreme Committee), Qatar’s World Cup organizing body, to seek details about...
April 7, 2022
Middle East and North Africa
Discrimination
Despite important labour reforms of the kafala sponsorship system since 2017, migrant workers across Qatar’s private security sector continue to be subjected to serious labour abuses including forced labour. The accounts of the security guards and safety officers interviewed by Amnesty...
April 7, 2022
Qatar
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
Amnesty International conducted research into the treatment of migrant workers in Qatar’s private security sector. As part of the research, Amnesty International contacted FIFA to seek details about specific due diligence it had undertaken into three security companies, as well as more broadly....
April 7, 2022
Qatar
Business and Human Rights
With just one year to go until the 2022 FIFA World Cup, time is running out for Qatar to deliver on its promise to abolish the kafala sponsorship system and better protect migrant workers, Amnesty International said today. In Reality Check 2021, a new analysis of Qatar’s progress towards...
November 16, 2021
Middle East and North Africa
Corporate Accountability
The final countdown to football’s next World Cup in November 2022 has started. But despite introducing important legal reforms, Qatar has still not delivered on its promise to end labour abuses and exploitation of its more than two million migrant workers. This report demonstrates that the...
November 16, 2021
Qatar
Migrants
Qatari authorities have failed to investigate the deaths of thousands of migrant workers over the past decade, despite evidence of links between premature deaths and unsafe working conditions, Amnesty International said today. The organization’s new report, In the Prime of their...
August 26, 2021
Bangladesh
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
Over the last decade, thousands of young migrant workers have died suddenly and unexpectedly in Qatar despite passing their mandatory medical tests before travelling to the country. Yet the Qatari authorities have to date failed to properly investigate their deaths in way that would make it...
August 26, 2021
Kenya
Censorship and Freedom of Expression
Malcolm Bidali, a Kenyan national, who was forcibly disappeared by Qatari authorities on 4 May 2021 and held in solitary confinement for a month, has finally been allowed to leave the country after paying a hefty fine for his human rights activism. The 28-year-old is a security guard, blogger and...
August 19, 2021
Qatar
Detention
The Qatari authorities must immediately reveal the whereabouts of Kenyan labour rights activist Malcolm Bidali, five human rights and labour rights organizations said today. More than three weeks after Mr. Bidali was forcibly disappeared by state security services, authorities are still refusing to...
May 28, 2021
Qatar
Detention
The Qatari authorities must immediately reveal the whereabouts of Kenyan labour rights activist Malcolm Bidali, five human rights and labour rights organizations said today. More than three weeks after Mr. Bidali was forcibly disappeared by state security services, authorities are still refusing to...
May 28, 2021