“OUR workers are treated worst in the Gulf,” says Walden Bello, a Filipino parliamentarian, referring to those of his countrymen who seek their fortune abroad. Millions of migrants, mainly from Asia and Africa, work in the Gulf and in the wider Middle East. Many pay up to $3,000 to recruitment agencies, only to find themselves working long hours for a pittance and with no time off in jobs that often differ vastly from the ones they signed up for back home. Mistreatment, including the sexual sort, is relatively common. The International Labour Organisation (ILO), a UN body, reckons that 600,000 workers in the region can be classed as victims of trafficking.

This is the sort of bad press Qatar wants to avoid in the run-up to the 2022 football World Cup, as it imports more workers to build stadiums for the tournament using a labour force already 94% foreign. The Qatar Foundation, an organisation founded by the emir, has drawn up rules for foreign workers. Among other things, contractors dealing with the foundation must pay for the worker’s ticket to the country, provide three weeks off a year and access to a washing machine. Other countries, taking Qatar’s cue, have agreed to piecemeal reforms. At the urging of the Philippine government, Saudi Arabia recently accepted that Filipino workers should earn at least $400 per month.

Sarah Leah Whitson of Human Rights Watch, a New York-based lobby, says the Qatar Foundation code is a model that could spark regional change. But she worries that the regulations—which have not been enshrined in Qatari law—will not be put into practice. Migrant workers in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) say their passports are still routinely confiscated on arrival, despite a court order to the contrary. A Domestic Workers Convention adopted by the ILO in 2011 has found little support in the region. Cruelty towards foreign workers, from Lebanon to Kuwait, remains widespread.

The migrant workers’ lot is unlikely to improve until the reform of the kafala system, whereby workers are beholden to the employers who sponsored their visas. The system blocks domestic competition for overseas workers in the Gulf countries. In the UAE, workers are not allowed to change jobs for at least two years. In Saudi Arabia runaways find it hard to leave the country since they need to show their original residency papers, often held by the employer. In 2009 Bahrain made a government agency the sponsor of most migrant visas and gave workers (apart from domestics) the right to change jobs without the employers’ permission. Two years later it said the right could only be invoked after a year of employment. In reality, the agency rejects applications to change jobs without the employer’s consent.

Rulers of the Gulf states, where workforces are made up of low-paid foreigners, are loth to change the system, since it ensures cheap labour. Eyeing unrest elsewhere in the region, they are wary of upsetting locals. The migrants’ suffering is not about to end.