Qatari authorities claim to have made improvements in the conditions for hundreds of thousands of migrant workers building for the 2022 World Cup, though human rights groups still complain about the pace of change.

Officials insist they are moving as fast as they can to overhaul their labour laws and improve conditions for construction workers, who face privation, penury and harsh restrictions on workplace rights in the Gulf state. Hundreds die each year because of accidents, heart failure or other health problems blamed on their working environment.

But a year on from the completion of an independent report by the law firm DLA Piper commissioned by the government in the wake of a series of Guardian investigations, human rights organisation and sources involved in the auditing progress say too little has changed structurally.

There is also deep concern that more than four years after Qatar was awarded the 2022 World Cup, the country’s minister of labour has admitted that there is no set timetable to introduce even the modest reforms it promised in May 2014.

The minister, Abdulla al-Khulaifi, told the Guardian Qatar was “moving as fast as the system allows” to deliver promised changes to labour laws and improve conditions for an army of migrant workers expected to swell to 2.5 million within five years.

During a recent visit, the Guardian was shown new accommodation and facilities that certainly seemed an improvement. But we also witnessed dormitories where little had changed, and where workers still complained about they way they were treated.

Damning reports by human rights organisations cataloguing the dire living conditions for many workers tied to their employers by the kafala system and investigations by the Guardian resulted in an international outcry and criticism of Fifa for not doing more to bring pressure to bear.



A year on from the DLA Piper report, which was not formally published by the Qataris but has been seen by the Guardian, NGOs say that while the country has made some progress in improving conditions for workers they remain deeply concerned about the lack of structural change.

“On a state level, it’s been very disappointing,” said Nicholas McGeehan, a Middle East researcher for Human Rights Watch who has worked extensively in Qatar to reveal the scale of the problem. “The initiatives of the 2022 supreme committee and the Qatar Foundation [the government’s not for profit investment arm], should help, the new living quarters are a good step but it is four-and-a-half years since they won the World Cup bid. In that time, very little has changed structurally.

“The modifications they are talking about making to kafala could result in workers being tied to their employer for five years [instead of permanently], so it’s more of an entrenchment of the system than a reform. It’s duplicitous for them to claim that they are getting rid of it: all they are doing is dropping the name.”

The Qatar Foundation and the Qatar 2022 supreme committee that has begun building the stadiums have introduced new codes of conduct for contractors.

The government has also begun building vast new “labour cities” to house workers in more sanitary and less dangerous conditions, while also increasing the number of labour inspectors.

The suspicion is that Qatar will point to progress in living conditions, and some small practical changes such laws requiring the payment of wages electronically, while failing to make progress on reforming kafala and more complex new laws around policing the supply chain.

A recent Amnesty report accused the government of “dragging its feet” and a forthcoming briefing from the human rights organisation is expected to argue that the response to date has been inadequate.

A labourer washes up in a dormitory site in the Sanaya industrial area of Doha. Photograph: Reuters

But Khulaifi insisted there was a genuine commitment to change and that Qatar was winning support from groups that had previously proved resistant in the wake of widespread global condemnation of abuses.

He said companies faced severe fines or closure if they failed to comply with new rules on payment of wages, standards of accommodation and other aspects of the employment of migrant workers in the hyper-wealthy Gulf emirate.

“I doubt if there is a country in the world that could pass a law within a month or two or three,” Khulaifi told the Guardian in an interview in Doha, part of an effort to try to improve the country’s image with the help of a London-based firm of strategic communications advisers.

“Any proposed law has to come to the cabinet, the cabinet has to send it to the stakeholders. Then it has to go to the shura [consultative] council. We are moving as fast as the system allows us. Labour issues are a high priority for this government.”

Khulaifi said that while there was no firm timetable for completion of the reforms, it was important that the Qatari public bought into them. “I see more in agreement with us than are again us,” he said. “But it will take time as in any other country in the world.

“Our people are reasonable. Our culture is humane. In our grandfathers’ time, when they used to have slavery, they ate together and treated them as part of the family. Our culture directs us to honouring our contracts and our promises.”

But the lack of a clear timetable is a major problem for human rights groups. Khulaifi said changes to kafala would “not allow an employer to have a monopoly over an employee” – one of the most controversial features of the current system. But Human Rights Watch and Amnesty have argued the proposed new system is merely a rebranding.

Khulaifi added that there were no plans to introduce a minimum wage. “Those who came and worked with us have flourished economically,” he said. “The market decides.”

A Guardian investigation in July found that even workers on the World Cup stadiums, governed by the supreme committee code of practice, were earning as little as 45p an hour.

The Qatari government was committed to change after being treated “unfairly” in the media, he said. “Oil prices are going down but this ministry has always been given what it requires,” Khulaifi added. “The resources are there. The will is there. We have no reason not to improve.”