on the 1st of June 2016 a fire ripped through a series of buildings 100 kilometers Southwest of Doha in Elric next to the Saudi Qatar border it was a Barren inhospitable part of the country but it was also the site of a brand new Ultra luxury hotel complex being built there the buildings were a labor camp complex run by a local contractor that housed hundreds of men from South Asia who were working on different projects for different companies some of whom were building the hotel 13 died in The Blaze but we don't know who they were or where they came from although qatar's prime minister visited some of the survivors in hospital many suffering horrific burns the names and nationalities of the men were never released today Qatar has a tiny population of 3 million it was 120 000 in 1971 just before independence from the British but building a vision needs cheap labor and ambition has always outrun reality tens upon tens of millions of Migrant workers have flocked to the Gulf Saudi Arabia the UAE and Qatar in particular to help build new highways malls golf courses skyscrapers and of course football stadiums so qatar's population today might be 3 million but that includes a population of less than 350 000 citizens over 90 percent of the population are migrant workers the vast majority low-paid construction and service workers from Asia and Africa especially India Pakistan Bangladesh Nepal the Philippines Kenya and Ghana until 2010 there had been little concern about the system that had been set up to control the gulf's huge migrant population kafala is an Arabic word with many translations it can mean sponsorship or the more benign to vouch for and is a system that places the responsibility for each worker in the hands of his or her employer it gives the employer or the company incredible power over those who can work for them and has provided a space for industrial levels of exploitation it means that people cannot change jobs without their employers permission and in the cases of Saudi Arabia and Qatar workers can't even leave the country without their employer's permission the system has been derided by human rights organizations as a form of modern day slavery that has created a vast underclass a form of economic apartheid it has facilitated large-scale labor abuses across the region passport seizures non-payment of wages physical mistreatment racism and the separation of workers into cramped isolated camps that are often kept in appalling conditions unionization is often illegal and anyone who tried to organize would often be arrested beaten and deported the whole system is fed by a Global Network of recruitment agents based in countries like Bangladesh desperate for foreign remittances that turn a blind eye to the abuse even as workers often have to take on debt to pave their way to the gulf leaving them open to exploitation once they arrive so when Qatar won the bid to host the World Cup in 2010 it placed a huge Spotlight on the country something which it had hoped for but it also brought kafala to wider attention the World Cup its infrastructure and hotels would be built by workers laboring under the system and soon the abuses would become apparent not least the appalling conditions that workers worked in often 50 degree summer heat and also lived in camps like the one in El rake where 13 workers died and yet nobody knew who they were or where they came from it was in neither the interests of the host country nor the country that provided the workers to track how many people died or were injured under such a system and the treatment of Migrant workers has dominated talk around the world cup and has been at the Forefront of many people's opposition to it it has been rightfully pilloried but also used as proof for qatar's detractors that the country should not have been awarded the right to host the World Cup in the first place how can a modern country host a World Cup that employs a system of worker control appearing to hark back to the brutal days of the Arabian slave trade except kafala's Roots can be found not in Doha but in Manama or more specifically in British colonialism if there was one figure who was key to the birth of the modern system of kafala it was a largely unknown Colonial bureaucrat called Sir Charles Dalrymple belgrave belgrave had served in the Imperial camel Corp during World War One and was a colonial administrative officer in what is now Tanzania but in 1925 he applied for a job advertised in the times the then British newspaper of record young gentleman aged 22 to 28 public school and or university education required for service in an Eastern State good salary and Prospects to suitable man who must be physically fit highest references Proficiency in language is an advantage right with full details to the times London now that eastern state was Bahrain which the British had to take to control over Sheikh Hamed Benicia al-kalifa was a newly anointed king having usurped his father Sheikh Isa three years earlier with the help of the British Sheikh Ahmad sought to modernize bahrain's bureaucracy and so looked to hire an advisor belgrave got the job and although he was employed personally by the king rather than the British government belgrave ensured British interests were protected you can find a picture of him at the National Portrait Gallery hair swept back pinstripe suit Carnation and a large cigar in his left hand between 1926 until 1957 belgrave was in charge of modernizing the state but also essentially ran the country to an absurdly microscopic level even attending court cases to dispense justice but one of his most consequential acts was a proclamation concerning worker rights he signed on Christmas day in 1928.
Bahrain was a center for purling which was labor intensive and would attract divers from all along the 2000 mile Gulf Coast that the British controlled and even from places farther afield like Iran most of the divers were indebted to the captain of the ship the inoketa but such things as passports Visa's nationality and even borders were a recently introduced phenomenon and so the flow of Migrant laborers needed to be controlled especially foreigners arriving from British jurisdictions in India and Pakistan essentially belgrave installed a sponsorship system effectively the first form of kafala introducing a form of Surety which was different to debt bondage and no objection certificates a rudimentary pipeline was set up by recruitment agencies to funnel workers to the gulf as Omar El shahabi wrote in his seminal 2019 study policing labor in the Empire the modern origins of the kafala sponsorship system in the Gulf Arab states in the British Journal of Middle Eastern studies this system had all the Hallmarks that were to become emblematic legal requirements of the modern Kavala system sponsors in this case the ship captains bearing responsibility for foreign divers on their ships a repatriation deposit to be paid by ship captains an entry Visa a valid work permit in this case a diver's permit and an exit Visa were all needed to work for ship captains in Bahrain it was effectively a British colonial policy for controlling labor and policing Empire on the cheap belgraves policies were not popular in Bahrain in 1956 after nearly 30 years in the country protests broke out against bahrain's restrictive rule with the British and in particular belgrave being singled out when the British foreign secretary Selwyn Lloyd visited Bahrain he was attacked when a riot broke out as crowds chanted and denounced belgrave's name a black and white BBC report from the time interviewed several bahrainis furious with belgrave who represented everything that was wrong with what was effectively British colonial rule is one prominent Bahraini Shake told the BBC that was actually to give an expression about Sir Charles belgrave only it wasn't directed to Selwyn Lloyd himself but the people hate Sir Charles belgrave they want him to go they want Selwyn Lloyd to know this he's done absolutely nothing to improve the country he has all the powers the protests were successful and belgrave was gone the following year in 1957 never to return but his legacy persisted the model of migrant worker control under British control spread to neighboring states hastened by the discovery of oil which attracted even larger numbers of foreign workers especially the almost pedantic British obsession with categorizing foreign workers based on nationality race class and marital status which would determine how they were treated and how much they would be paid the system spread to other Gulf countries under British protection evolved and became entrenched after Independence in the 1970s the 1973 OPEC crisis and the Boom in oil revenues supercharged development in the gulf and the need for cheap labor at the start of the boom it was mainly Arab workers who filled these jobs but the gulf's autocratic leaders feared a growing population that might Embrace pan-arab nationalism which they viewed as a threat to their existence when Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States expelled millions of workers for their government's perceived support of Saddam Hussein during the first Gulf War especially yemenis Palestinians and Egyptians the Gap was filled by workers from Asia which decisively tipped the balance the treatment of Migrant workers was far worse in countries like the UAE and Saudi Arabia but the World Cup ensured that Qatar became the face of a global system of worker exploitation there were seven stadiums to build a new Metro system and Airport a new network of roads over 100 new hotels and a brand new city to be built in Lucille where the World Cup final would be held the pressure from human rights groups and unions around the world forced reform in 2017 changes began to be announced in 2018 the international labor organization opened an office in Doha to help oversee reforms and Qatar eventually announced that it would abolish kafala allowing workers to change jobs and leave the country without their boss's permission a new standardized minimum wage was introduced while not based on which country you were from and agents fees would be banned worker accommodation on World Cup projects would be improved even if the definition of a World Cup project was both narrow and vague of course Qatar is only 50 miles across almost every construction project was connected in some way to the World Cup and whilst the international labor organization has praised Qatar for its reforms many human rights groups remain deeply skeptical of how the reforms are implemented according to Nicholas mcgeehan a human rights activist who's been campaigning against the injustices of kafala for two decades the reform process came out of a political crisis not a human rights crisis it was the Saudi emirati aggression that led Qatar to be isolated and in need of friends everywhere and that was when the ILO was brought in on paper that reform process looks good but the situation is not significantly better than in 2004 or 2010 which is to say there have been some impressive legal reforms but if you're a worker on the ground now you wouldn't recognize any significant difference in your treatment from 10 years ago in many cases the employers see these workers as property and people they are free to employ or dispose of at their whim as the finals approach human rights groups have changed tactics Amnesty International has demanded that FIFA and Qatar pay 440 million dollars the same figure FIFA pays out in prize money in compensation to the workers who built the World Cup but stadiums were only one aspect of the World Cup that Qatar had to build they also had to build a decent national team on the 29th of January 2019 the semi-final of the Asian cup took place in the Mohammed bin Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi it was a packed venue nearly 40 000 strong almost all of them emiratis hoping to see their team qualify for their first ever Asian Cup Final the equivalent of the European championships but things were not going to plan qatar's 22 year old Striker El moazeli had just put Qatar to nilup it was his eighth goal of the Asian cup a tournament in which Ali had become the breakout star in the moments after the goal he danced in front of the home fans the tensions that had been simmering for months due to the gulf blockade came to a head plastic bottles sandals and shoes rained down upon him as George W bush discovered in 2008 when Iraqi journalist montada El zaidi threw both his shoes at him during a press conference shouting this is a farewell kiss from the Iraqi people you dog shoe throwing is a grave insult in Arab culture and Ali's goal had Unleashed a torrent of anger you see the golf blockade as it turned out was not a flash in the pan 18 months later qatar's economy hadn't collapsed the construction of the World Cup hadn't been adversely affected and the government refused to implement any of the 13 demands that the Coalition led by Saudi Arabia the UAE and Bahrain had issued the only lever left was to try to win the information War for 18 months the UAE pumped out negative stories about Qatar the qataris responded with stories about how it was being unfairly bullied and so the anger built up and shoes and Bottles flew but the players were at least allowed to play Qatari supporters had effectively been banned from traveling to the UAE besides showing support or sympathy for Qatar was now a criminal offense making the act of supporting the team in public all but impossible but there had been one positive development over the past year back in 2017 Qatar lost 3-1 to Syria and were eliminated from qualification for Russia 2018.
