Letter to FIFA Re. Responsibility to Remedy Deaths and Abuse of Migrant Workers’ Rights in Qatar

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KEY PRINCIPLES FOR REMEDIATION

To fulfil its own human rights responsibilities, we urge FIFA to channel the recently announced Legacy Fund towards establishing and subsidizing a comprehensive remediation programme for labour abuses suffered by migrant workers while preparing and delivering the tournament and related infrastructure. This should include, at minimum, uncompensated families of workers who died in Qatar in this context.

This grave issue of workers’ deaths, which has become one of the primary issues of concern among football fans, is a legacy of the 2022 World Cup that FIFA can still attempt to address. By channelling the Legacy Fund towards compensation, FIFA has an opportunity to send a powerful message that migrant workers are not forgotten or left behind, while meeting its own human rights responsibilities.

In doing so, we emphasize the following principles that should be reflected in the design and implementation of such a scheme, and strongly encourage FIFA to convene expert stakeholders as soon as possible to take this forward:[4]

• Eligibility: The programme should be able to remedy unaddressed historical grievances from 2010 onwards, so that migrant workers who faced abuse and families of all migrant workers whose deaths may be related to the preparation and delivery of the World Cup – whether or not the causes of their deaths were investigated – would be eligible for remediation.
• Accessibility: The programme should ensure easy access and a low evidentiary threshold for potential beneficiaries to come forward and seek full reparation, including for workers and their families outside of Qatar.
• Fit-for-purpose remedial avenues: Existing complaint and reparation mechanisms could form the basis of a new reparation scheme, though new compensatory routes are also likely to be required. Given the large number of workers affected by the same type of abuse, collective redress claims should be considered to greatly speed up delivery of remedy for individual workers.
• Participatory governance structure: Both the programme and its governance structure should be designed, set up and implemented in consultation with, and with the active participation of, key stakeholders, including migrant workers and their families, global trade unions, International Labour Organisation (ILO) representatives, civil society organizations and individual labour and human rights experts.
• Financial contribution: The final amount required for remedy will be determined by the scale of the need, the harms to be redressed and reparation measures to be offered, in consultation with impacted workers and families. It should be decided through a participatory process and subject to an independent evaluation.
• Speed: Some workers and their families have been waiting for years to access justice – daily experiencing the loss of their breadwinners and having their livelihoods, education, access to food, and enjoyment of other rights impacted. Clear timelines should be set and pre-agreed criteria with which to assess cases should be established to ensure fairness and reduce the burden on workers.
• Transparency and accountability: Details of the remediation programme should be published in full and communicated proactively and regularly on its efforts and progress, with sufficient and up-to-date data on the programme’s performance.
• Non-repetition: Fundamental to reparation is the guarantee of non-repetition of past abuses.[5] Legal reform and other “legacy” work to secure lasting improvements in the living and working conditions of migrant workers in Qatar should be seen in this light. Migrant workers’ empowerment is also key to ensure non-repetition. As such, FIFA should support and contribute financially towards initiatives designed to assist and support migrant workers, such as a Migrant Workers’ Centre, to “help workers and their representatives defend themselves and allow them to effectively cooperate with Qatari authorities on pressing issues”.[6]

Ultimately, we urge FIFA to demonstrate its ongoing commitment to its human rights responsibilities and to view the far-reaching consequence the funds could have for the families of migrant workers who are struggling to make ends meet or repay loans.

Ensuring remedy for abuses on the scale suffered in the context of the World Cup in Qatar will take time, commitment and sufficient resources, but it is possible. Below we take one of the most egregious issues that marred the 2022 tournament – deaths of migrant workers – as an example of why FIFA must urgently respond, and how it could do so.

Under the Qatari Labour Law, families of workers who die “by reason of work” or workers who sustain injuries resulting in complete or partial permanent disability from work injuries, are entitled to compensation.[7] However, human rights organizations, journalists, and trade unions, among others, have been documenting the deaths of low-paid migrant workers who died in Qatar since 2010 delivering and servicing the 2022 World Cup and other related infrastructure, but whose deaths Qatari authorities did not investigate, meaning their families did not get compensation from their employers or the state. The deaths of the vast majority of thousands of these workers were attributed to “natural causes” or “cardiac arrest,” terms that obscure the underlying cause of deaths and make it impossible to determine whether they may be related to working conditions, such as heat stress.[8]

A number of studies have shown the link between heat stress and workers dying of cardiovascular problems, including a strong correlation in the summer months.[9] However, without meaningful investigations such deaths are categorized as ‘non-work-related’, which means families are deemed ineligible for compensation, leaving many wracked with debt and destitute in the absence of their often- sole income provider.

Qatar’s Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy has itself recognized the inadequacy of the current compensation systems, and since 2019 has urged its contractors to purchase life insurance for employees to ensure that all families of deceased workers receive compensation regardless of the location or cause of death. However, adoption of life insurance has been low, with only 23 contractors complying despite a marginal cost to the employer of around 50 QAR (US$14) per worker per year.[10]

Our research has demonstrated the feasibility of implementing a remediation programme for workers’ deaths, given existing recordkeeping and compensation mechanisms that can be built on. Qatari authorities hold substantial information on the migrant workers who lost their lives in Qatar,[11] including the details of the hiring company, the deceased migrant workers and their legal heirs. Qatari authorities also have access to information which could be used to identify claimants and corroborate applications for remedy from those who have suffered other human rights harms, such as employer records, labour inspection reports, Wage Protection System data, and labour court records.

Furthermore, we would like to draw your attention to existent data from mechanisms in migrant origin countries that can be used to identify and locate recipients of this fund.[12] Every worker who comes to Qatar must undergo several steps to legally migrate to Qatar.[13] When a worker dies in Qatar, the governments of these countries provide various welfare services to families of the deceased including coffin delivery support, burial support, and modest financial compensation to varying degrees.

In sum, Qatari authorities and governments of origin countries are sitting on vast amounts of information on the victims. If a legacy fund kicks in to ensure access to remedy, the governments are also well placed to address any gaps and help locate victims, by taking additional steps such as putting out calls for information on national media outlets and government websites. The Qatari Embassies and Qatar Visa Centres in origin countries can also play a critical facilitation role. These possible avenues to make the compensation scheme practically feasible should encourage FIFA to use the Legacy Fund to change lives of families of migrant workers who died or suffered other human rights abuses directly or indirectly associated with the 2022 Qatar World Cup.