Two reports with vastly different narratives on Qatar’s labour reforms were released late November, roughly one year since the FIFA 2022 kick off. The International Labour Organisation (ILO), which has a technical cooperation programme with Qatar, and Amnesty International both took stock of the current situation in the country. The former acknowledges certain limitations and setbacks, but by and large presents a positive performance report based on data furnished by the Ministry of Labour. Amnesty’s findings are grounded in workers’ testimonies and paint a far less optimistic picture, reflecting what Migrant-Rights.Org (MR) has also found in its investigations and research...

Working with Qatar’s Ministry of Labour (MoL), the ILO assisted Qatar in implementing a number of reforms including: restructuring the complaints process; introducing a national minimum wage; establishing a Wage Protection System to prevent wage theft, and dismantling the Kafala system to allow workers to change jobs without their sponsor’s permission. Much of these reforms remain words on paper, with workers facing innumerable barriers to realising them in practice, particularly in accessing justice mechanisms.

Below MR examines the ILO (and the Qatar government)’s findings against our research, Amnesty’s, and other organisations working in this field...