Human Rights and the 2022 World Cup
Though still seven years away, the 2022 FIFA World Cup has received plenty of attention from the international media. This attention has been focused not on soccer but on the gross human rights violations taking place during the preparation phase. The host nation, Qatar, has promised to build infrastructure including a new airport as well as multiple new stadiums and an updated highway system for the world’s most popular sporting event. The estimated costs of this project are in the hundreds of billions of dollars.
The people responsible for the construction of this project are migrant workers who are recruited from poor countries such as Nepal and brought in under the misguided idea that they will be able to find a better living situation in Qatar and send money home to their families. Once these workers, who are mainly young men, are brought in and begin work they are essentially owned by their wealthy employers. The workers cannot leave the country with out the employer’s permission, and they work in 12 hour shifts every single day. The living conditions in the communities of workers are horrific. Men are crammed into rooms that are simply not big enough to hold them and are forced to use the same few showers as hundreds of other workers. Perhaps the most shocking aspect of this story is the death toll. Currently, 1,200 men have died since the start of this project. If numbers continue at this rate, over 4000 migrant workers will have died by its culmination.
As for stopping this already horrific problem, not much has really occurred. Qatar has delayed and balked at foreign pressure to fix the working conditions. Many believe that the only people capable of actually impacting Qatar would be FIFA’s corporate sponsors. Companies such as McDonald’s, Adidas, and Coca Cola could probably put an end to the human rights violations by pulling their support from FIFA until conditions are improved. This in turn would force FIFA to pressure Qatar far more than they currently are.
Below is an E:60 report which sums up the story from the workers point of view very well.