Qatar: The migrant workers behind the World Cup
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 31 October 2022
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Workers from countries such as Nepal have done the bulk of the work to build the stadiums and infrastructure for the Qatar World Cup. But there are difficult questions still to be answered about the treatment of these people, and how compensation for those workers who have been badly treated, or even died in Qatar, is being paid.
In this episode, Ed Butler speaks to a man from Nepal who worked on a bus depot project in Doha and an investigative journalist in Nepal who says he is speaking to workers who are being sent home from Qatar because the World Cup is happening.
Human Rights Watch explain the issues with compensation payments that they are still hearing about, and James Dorsey, a specialist on the politics of Middle East football, gives his view on the gamble the Qataris are undertaking to host the event, in a hope that they gain ‘soft power’.
Producer/Presenter: Ed Butler
(Image: A Qatari stadium with workers climbing up. Credit: European Pressphoto Agency)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi there, welcome to Business Daily on the BBC World Service. |
| 0:05.1 | My name's Ed Butler. |
| 0:06.2 | Today, it's time. |
| 0:07.6 | Football fans everywhere, the World Cup is upon us, |
| 0:11.2 | and one small Gulf nation is preparing to open its doors. |
| 0:15.4 | We welcome everybody from all religions, all walks of life, |
| 0:18.9 | and they can come and enjoy the World Cup, |
| 0:26.0 | and also learn about our culture and learn about our traditions, our religion and so on. |
| 0:27.8 | But everybody is welcome to Rattah. |
| 0:32.0 | Yep, the best players in the world squaring up in Qatar. |
| 0:38.0 | But some thorny questions are still to be asked about this sporting celebration. |
| 0:43.4 | We're still recording and documenting migrant workers humiliated without their wages, |
| 0:49.0 | worse off than when they arrive, who still suffer today because their employees refuse to pay them their money. |
| 0:53.7 | Kata and its disputed record on Labour rights. |
| 0:55.9 | That's Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 1:13.6 | This is Bibbek, not his real name, he's a construction worker trained as an electrician who's recently been forced to return home from Qatar to his native Nepal after what he says |
| 1:20.6 | was a nightmare experience. |
| 1:23.6 | In guitar, I worked building a bus depot. |
| 1:29.3 | It was a government project, a new bus depot targeting international visitors for the World Cup. |
| 1:35.3 | I worked hard, eight hours a day, only one day off a week, both indoors and outside. |
| 1:43.3 | The company never paid me on time. We had to organise strikes |
| 1:47.8 | just to get our salary. The company even denied payment for our food. How can we live without food? |
... |
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