Modern Day Slavery In Qatar: Workers Paid Less Than 60p An Hour – The VOAG Investigates

The VOAG has been aware of the issue of foreign workers in Qatar for some time. RT, Press TV, and Aljazeera, as well as Amnesty International have made documentaries on the issue, and the VOAG has received a variety of articles on the subject. foreign workers mainly from India, Pakistan and other developing countries are encouraged to go to Qatar to work in the construction industry. Once there they are stripped of their passports and forced to work for very little money, and in some cases, for free.

UCATT, the British construction union recently went to Qatar on a “fact-finding mission” to investigate for them selves, and spoke to the VOAG of their results. UCATT now plan to put further pressure on the Hukoomi – Qatar Government Portal and British based companies working in the country. The plight of workers will become increasingly high-profile, as construction is now beginning for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.UCATT met workers who were being paid less than £0.60 pence an hour and who were being paid a little over £50 a week, while being expected to work excessive hours, 6 days a week in temperatures up to 55 degrees in the summer. The levels of poverty pay are especially stark given that Qatar is one of the wealthiest countries in the world.

The 2 million construction workers in Qatar work under the kafala system which means they are bonded labour. The workers have their passports confiscated and cannot leave the country without their employer’s permission. For many workers this means that they cannot return home for at least two years. The workers also have to pay up to a thousand pounds each before they are allowed to work in Qatar, which are often financed through loans at very high interest rates. Often workers do not receive the wages owed to them. During the mission UCATT met workers who had not been paid for five months.

UCATT also visited the accommodation provided for many of the workers and saw how workers live in abject squalor. UCATT met a group of nine workers who were expected to live in one tiny room measuring 10 square metres. Welfare facilities were entirely inadequate with just five poorly maintained toilets provided for 200 workers. The facilities for workers to prepare food were also atrocious. Workers report there is often no running water and they are forced to wash in sea water.

Steve Murphy, General Secretary of UCATT, said: “The treatment of migrant construction workers in Qatar is appalling. If animals were being treated in this way in Britain there would be a national outcry. The fact that this is happening overseas means that many companies are prepared to look the other way in the pursuit of profits.Hundreds of migrant construction workers die in Qatar every year. In the last two years 500 Indian workers have died. Last year 195 Nepalese deaths were recorded 123 of these were recorded as being due to cardiac arrest. UCATT learnt that deceased workers do not receive a post mortem and if the death was recorded as natural causes then no compensation was paid. Mr Murphy added: “The way that migrant workers are treated in Qatar demonstrates that those in power consider their lives to be cheap and expendable.”

The fact finding mission to Qatar was jointly organised with Building and Wood Workers’ International (BWI) the international federation of construction unions.

Reporting on the preparations for the 2022 World Cup, an RT (Russia Today news channel) investigation discovered foreign construction workers “toiling in terrible conditions and having received no salaries for months”, and their “passports confiscated by employers”.

One of the men interviewed worked for 12 years as an accommodation specialist, but, as Peter Giesel, the film maker, indicated to RT, “ironically, his accommodation itself doesn’t even have a fan.” The man hasn’t been getting his salary and bonuses for a number of years, and his main difficulty is to fight a case against his boss and his firm: the employer took his passport from him, and the 35-year-old worker hasn’t made the money necessary to return home, “the devilish circle”, as the RT report put it. Another group of guys – there were four of them – weren’t paid for seven months in a row and were trying to file a case when Giesel met them.

As the filmmaker explained, one of the main issues surrounding migrant workers is that they are employed under the so-called kafala system, which is “a law basically stating that every migrant worker that comes into Qatar has to find his own personal sponsor meaning his boss, the firm or corporation he’s working for.”

“And that sponsor has to take care of him legally and medically, but obviously, most of the sponsors take their passports away from the migrant workers. That puts maybe tens of thousands of them in a miserable situation. They can’t make any money to go home, so they’re trapped down there.”

Moreover, migrant employees can’t rely on outside forces such as their countries’ embassies, according to Giesel. “I had a chance to sneak into the Nepalese embassy and do my recordings down there. It seems to be some kind of chaos: the bureaucracy not only in the embassies, but also in the Qatari system is too overwhelming for those 1.4 million migrant workers to be treated fairly,” reported Giesel.

LINCOLN SAVED THE UNION

LINCOLN SAVED THE UNION

Lincoln’s concern was to save the Union, not to save or destroy slavery. Lincoln would save the Union the shortest way he could under the Constitution and by using extra constitutional means.

Many people believed that the Civil War was fought on the basis of morals and ethics rather than keeping the Union intact. In truth, Lincoln waged war on secession and nation slavery, his first priority was saving the United States of America. Abraham Lincoln said “what I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save this Union” (Voices of America, p. 138). On January 1, 1863, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation where he freed all slaves in the rebellious states. Lincoln knew this would play a heavy psychological and economical toll on the South, all of which would be an advantage for the Union. Lincoln showed great determination on not allowing secession to occur, the controversial issue of slavery would not stand in the way.

Lincoln would save the Union at any cost, towards slavery. In August, 1862 Lincoln wrote a letter to Horace Greeley, an editor of the New York Tribune, who published an open letter insisting President Lincoln free the slaves immediately. In Lincoln’s reply he wrote “If I could save the Union without freeing any slaves, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it, and if I could do it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also so that” (Voices of America, p.138). Lincoln objective was to save the Union, not to either save or destroy slavery.

Lincoln’s letter regarding the Union and slavery basically stated that he believed that the Union could be saved without destroying slavery. Lincoln believed if what he was doing hurts the cause he would do less and if it helped the cause he would do more. As soon as Lincoln discovered an error, he tried to correct it as soon as possible and he adopted new views as fast as they appeared to be true.

Even though his main priority was to save the Union, he had to put fourth something to calm the northern anti-slavery forces. Lincoln used his constitutional powers to issue the Emancipation Proclamation that freed the slaves in the rebellious states. He did not issue it on the border states which were still part of the Union but had slaves. He did this to keep the border states from succeeding from the Union. The border states were very important assets to the success of winning the war do to their location and population. Lincoln also suspended the habeas corpus. By doing this, he defied a ruling by the chief justice that stated that only Congress could suspend the habeas corpus based on the Constitution. Lincoln did this so that anti-Unionists could be arrested and not be tried in court. Suspending the habeas corpus is an example of how Lincoln used extra constitutional powers to rescue the Union.

Lincoln suspended habeas corpus and issued the Emancipation Proclamation to re-unite the country the shortest way possible. He had to use extra constitutional powers to do this and be successful. Not concerning with slavery, he saved the Union any way he could.