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	Qatar 2022 World Cup: Built by Forced Labor by Samir Goswami Amnesty International   November 2013   When I was 10 and living in Libya, I would often visit my father at the Indian Embassy, where he was serving as a diplomat, and find his office packed with workers desperately seeking repatriation back home.   These men were lured to Libya from villages in India with promises of good paying jobs in the oil fields. When they got there, usually after taking on much debt to finance the trip, they were forced to work under brutal conditions at a lower wage than they were promised. Other than their embassy, they had no local authorities to turn to for grievance.   Three decades later, a similar scenario is playing out in Qatar, where migrant workers are facing a myriad of abuses at the hands of their employers, a problem that has been brought into stark relief by preparations for the FIFA World Cup in 2022. In our new report, "The Dark Side of Migration: Spotlight on Qatar"s Construction Sector Ahead of the World Cup", Amnesty International has uncovered many cases where these abuses amount to forced labor or human trafficking. Migrant workers currently make up over 90% of the total workforce in Qatar and most of them come from countries in Asia and the Middle East including Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Egypt, Sri Lanka and my home country of India.   In Libya back then, Indian workers were being abused in the oil fields that produced petroleum for export. Today in Qatar, workers rights are violated in industries tied to infrastructure development, risks that will only increase as the country invests heavily in construction projects in advance of the soccer championship.   The main issues that workers say they face are deception in recruitment about types of work, wages and conditions, restrictions on their mobility when they arrive, not getting paid for work they perform, and unsafe conditions on the work sites. A unifying element is that these workers all say they don"t have access to any government institution to appeal to that would swiftly investigate claims and provide resolution. Their experiences of fraud, force or coercion contain elements of human trafficking as defined under international law and are grave abuses of human rights.   A Qatari law that allows for companies to sponsor workers, and thus bring them to the country, also makes it extremely difficult for workers to change jobs or return home without permission from the sponsor. Amnesty International research documented cases of dozens of construction workers who tried to leave the country but were prevented from doing so by their employers. These employers exercised authority to restrict workers freedom of movement, many illegally confiscating their employees passports and refusing to return them when workers expressed a desire to leave. These actions only add to a worker"s sense that his employer has much authority over him with few options available to leave and seek justice.   Furthermore, in the rush to prepare for the World Cup, Qatar"s many construction projects are ambitious, massive operations. There are myriad dangers to workers, both from accidents and from working in a very hot climate. As the director of the Hamad Hospital trauma unit in Doha told Amnesty researchers:   Companies should take more interest in the safety of their workers. The authorities must be strict on rules and regulations to force these companies to take all safety measures and make it obligatory at all construction sites.   These risks can be mitigated if the Qatari authorities press employers to adequately protect health and safety, and by creating mechanisms for workers to safely file complaints.   Well ahead of the 2022 World Cup, Qatar has an opportunity to address human rights risks by instilling laws, systems and practices to protect migrant workers and the many others who will be coming seeking fair work during the related construction boom. Political will is needed now to provide confidence to global visitors to Qatar that the facilities they will enjoy were not produced at the expense of someone"s human rights. Visitors and investors must press the Qatari authorities on this. The time to do so is now.   http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/MDE22/010/2013/en http://business-humanrights.org/en/major-sporting-events/labour-rights-and-the-qatar-world-cup-2022 Visit the related web page
	Breaking the Silence: Time to Strengthen the United Nations’ Role to End Impunity by UN Human Rights Office   November 2013   A group of leading United Nations independent human rights experts have called on the United Nations to adopt a more central role in the fight against impunity, and urged Member States to give more support to and strengthen on-going efforts to secure accountability and justice for human rights violations, including serious crimes.   “Ending impunity requires greater scrutiny, prosecution and punishment, and no other international institution is better placed than the United Nations to effectively contribute to this goal,” they stressed. “It is time for the UN to take a more decisive role in combating impunity and focus on all dimensions of the problem, including the erosion of the rule of law and the violation of general principles of justice.”   Welcoming civil society’s initiative to commemorate 23 November as an annual International Day to End Impunity, the human rights experts recalled that the Heads of State and Government pledged to ensure that impunity for serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law is not tolerated, and that such violations are properly investigated, prosecuted and sanctioned, as stated in the UN Declaration on the rule of law adopted on 24 September 2012.   The experts recalled that States are required to hold accountable those who fail to protect and prevent, as well as those who perpetrate, violations of human rights, including the rights of women and other groups at risk. “Fighting against impunity implies not only the obligation of States to investigate violations and take appropriate measures in respect of the perpetrators and the victims, but also to ensure the inalienable right to know the truth about violations and take other necessary steps to prevent their recurrence,” they added.   “Efforts to address impunity must demand transparency and accountability of all State and non-State actors, including not only paramilitary forces, mercenaries, private military companies and terrorists, but also transnational corporations,” they said.   “The goal of ending impunity does not aim at revenge but at justice,” the independent experts underscored. “It requires objectivity and non-selectivity in identifying abuses that have not been redressed.”   “Addressing the challenge of impunity is not the one-way street of victor"s justice and the punishment of the guilty among the vanquished,” they said. “The solution must be found in equal application of the law and the commitment to obtain an accounting by the powerful and the weak alike.”   The human rights experts noted that the fight against impunity requires Governments to ensure access to justice for all, to proactively make information available to all and to refrain from using national security, immunities or any other measures to cloak criminal behaviour.   “Universal access to diverse and reliable information, effective domestic justice systems, the globalization of the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court and the practical realization of the right to truth are necessary conditions to do away with impunity,” they concluded. Visit the related web page
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