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JMHS Volume 4 Number 4 (2016): 221-259
Leveraging the World Cup: Mega
Sporting Events, Human Rights
Risk, and Worker Welfare Reform
in Qatar
Sarath K. Ganji
US Fulbright Scholar
Executive Summary
Qatar will realize its decades-long drive to host a mega sporting event
when, in 2022, the opening ceremony of the Fédération Internationale
de Football Association (FIFA) World Cup commences. By that time, the
Qatari government will have invested at least $200 billion in real estate
and development projects, employing anywhere between 500,000 and
1.5 million foreign workers to do so. The scale of these preparations is
staggering — and not necessarily positive. Between 2010 and 2013, more
than 1,200 labor migrants working in Qatar’s construction sector died, with
another 4,000 deaths projected by the start of the event. Foreign workers
are subject to conditions of forced labor, human trafcking, and indenite
detention. Advocacy groups cite deplorable living and working conditions,
coupled with lax legal protections for workers, as the main culprits. Absent
signicant improvements in worker welfare, Qatar’s World Cup will be
remembered as a human rights tragedy.
This article examines whether it is possible for Qatar’s World Cup to
forge a different legacy, as an agent of change on behalf of worker welfare
reform. In examining the issue, the article takes a two-fold approach. First,
it locates the policy problem of worker welfare abuses in the context of
the migration life cycle. The migration life cycle represents the range of
activities that mediate the relationship between an individual migrant and
the labor migration system — from the time the migrant rst considers
working overseas to his employment abroad to his eventual return to the
home country. An understanding of worker welfare abuses in Qatar does
not begin or end with reports of migrant deaths. A much broader pattern
of abuse exists that, if ignored, will undermine effective policy responses.
Second, the article frames worker welfare as a matter that lies at the
intersection of business and human rights. Mega events are large-
scale, internationally recognized activities that aim to promote regional
development and to advance universal values and principles. They also
represent an important collaboration between stakeholders across sectors.
The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, therefore,
Journal on Migration and Human Security
222
offer a framework for understanding how worker welfare reform might be
in the interests of governmental and corporate actors alike.
Ultimately, this paper outlines four policy proposals that may be
undertaken by countries of origin, nongovernmental organizations,
international organizations, and Qatari employers: (1) the development of
a list of labor-supply agencies committed to ethical recruitment practices;
(2) the devising of low-interest, preferential loans for migrants considering
employment in Qatar; (3) the establishment of a resource center to serve as
a one-stop shop for migrant information and services; and (4) the creation
of training programs to aid migrants upon their return home. These options
are not meant to diminish the role of the Qatari government in reform
efforts, and indeed, the state can — and should — take steps to improve
worker welfare, including strengthening worker welfare standards, closing
labor law loopholes, and bolstering law enforcement capacity. But these
measures are not enough. Therefore, the above four policy proposals put
forward a process-specic, rather than actor-specic, approach to reform
aimed at capitalizing on the spotlight of the World Cup to bring about
lasting, positive change in Qatar’s migrant labor practices.
I. Introduction
The announcement in late 2010 by the Fédération Internationale de Football Association
(FIFA) to award Qatar — and the Arab world — its rst World Cup was a seminal moment.
It represented the culmination of decades of political and economic development that had
positioned Qatar as a consequential geopolitical actor.
In the years ahead, Qatar will undertake infrastructure development on an unprecedented
scale. World Cup competitions will take place in at least eight stadiums, most of them newly
constructed for these specic games. Additionally, creation of a team base camp (TBC)
village for the athletes, as well as lodging, leisure, sport, recreation, and tourism venues
for the spectators, will be necessary. Plans are also underway to create a new airport, a rail
network, and a metro system (Gibson 2012). In all, Qatar is expected to invest over $200
billion in real estate and infrastructure projects (Menary 2015). These projects will require
between 500,000 and 1.5 million foreign workers (Zegrea and Choufany 2012).
Much of Qatar’s development has rested on the eorts of these migrants, imported
primarily from South Asia and the Middle East, to ll its expanding construction and
domestic worker sectors. Two years after FIFA’s announcement, Qatar became the object
of international criticism for the poor conditions in which its labor migrants live and work.
Between 2010 and 2013, more than 1,200 labor migrants working in Qatar’s construction
sector died, with another 4,000 deaths projected by the start of the World Cup event in
2022 (Chen 2015). Not all of these deaths have occurred on World Cup sites, nor is it
clear, given state restrictions on post-mortem data, the extent to which these gures can
be attributed to construction-related incidents (DLA Piper 2014). What is clear, however,
is that foreign workers are subject to conditions of forced labor, human tracking, and
Leveraging the World Cup
223
indenite detention, and that, absent signicant improvements in worker welfare, Qatar’s
World Cup will be remembered as a human rights tragedy.
What are the prospects for worker welfare reform in Qatar, given the prevailing tensions
underlying the government’s development objectives and its human rights obligations?
And in what ways does the World Cup oer reform advocates an opportunity to balance
these competing interests, positioning the World Cup as an agent of change?
To answer these questions, this paper focuses its analysis on migrants from the Qatar-
Asia migration corridor who ultimately take up employment in Qatar’s construction
sector. Limiting this paper’s scope to the above qualications is appropriate for a couple
of reasons. First, the Qatar-Asia migration corridor accounts for over 65 percent of Qatar’s
total migrant population (Table 1; Snoj 2014). More importantly, six countries — India,
Nepal, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Pakistan — are disproportionately
represented in Qatar’s construction and domestic worker sectors, where welfare abuses
are most common. As such, this article denes the Qatar-Asia migration corridor in terms
of one country of destination (COD), Qatar, and these six countries of origin (COOs),
referring to this regional grouping as the Qatar-COO migration corridor.
Table 1. Qatar’s Expatriate Population by Country of
Origin
Second, construction, more than any other sector, is expected to experience a surge in
foreign workers. Migrant construction workers face unique welfare abuses due to the extent
of contracting and subcontracting services typically embedded in construction projects.
Adding such complexity to these value chains increases the probability, magnitude, and
intensity of welfare abuses experienced by this subset of the labor migrant population
(Ruggie 2013). Additionally, with the construction sector almost entirely composed of
males, focusing on this demographic allows for a more tailored analysis. Domestic workers,
Country of origin Percent of total population of Qatar Region
India 23.58 South Asia
Nepal 17.3 South Asia
Philippines 8.65 Southeast Asia
Bangladesh 6.49 South Asia
Egypt 7.78 North Africa
Sri Lanka 4.33 Southeast Asia
Pakistan 3.89 South Asia
Sudan 1.82 North Africa
Jordan 1.72 Middle East
Indonesia 1.68 Southeast Asia
Total 77.24
Source: Snoj 2014 (see text).
Journal on Migration and Human Security
224
many of whom are women, face a number of welfare abuses overwhelmingly proportioned
to their gender, such as sex tracking. At its current length, this article cannot do justice
to such abuses.
The ndings of this article are based on qualitative evidence drawn from three sources. At
the outset, a documentary review was undertaken spanning the online and print literatures
concerning labor migration, business and human rights, and mega events. Complementing
this review were interviews with 18 leaders from think tanks and advocacy groups,
governmental bodies, intergovernmental organizations, and corporations. A nal source
comes from eldwork conducted in Qatar, during which visits to construction sites and labor
camps as well as interviews with 15 camp residents provided supplemental perspectives.
The remainder of this article is organized into three sections. The rst section denes
the policy problem — namely, the factors that make possible worker welfare abuses in
Qatar’s construction sector — before introducing the concept of the migration life cycle to
frame the array of abuses experienced by labor migrants across the Qatar-COO migration
corridor. The next section explores the ways in which the World Cup can serve as a vehicle
for political change when approached through the UN Guiding Principles on Business and
Human Rights. The nal section lays out potential recommendations directed at a range of
stakeholders invested in Qatar’s policies on migration and development.
II. Worker Welfare
The Qatari state’s long-term objective is to transform the small Gulf nation into an advanced
country. As articulated in National Vision 2030 — a Qatari development plan launched in
2008 — the state plans to achieve this objective through investments in human, social,
economic, and environmental development (Qatar MDPS 2008). At the heart of these
eorts is the recognition that the country’s rapid growth must not outpace its capabilities
and that its development is largely dependent upon the size and quality of its migrant labor
force. At times, however, development as a national interest is at odds with worker welfare
as an ethical imperative.
This tension is on display in Qatar’s preparations for World Cup 2022. Hence, the central
policy challenge is to improve worker welfare by addressing existing abuses endemic to
the migration life cycle linking Qatar to COOs.
A. Elements of the Problem
The number of foreign workers migrating to the Arabian Gulf places it among the world’s
three most active destinations for labor migrants (Gardner 2012). In all, nearly 25 million
expatriates are employed in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, a gure that
constitutes almost half of the total GCC population (Table 2).
Of course, this population imbalance is hardly new. Since the oil boom of the 1970s, Gulf
states have relied on foreign workers, drawn primarily from Arab and Asian countries,
to channel oil wealth into ambitious economic development projects. Over this period,
however, Gulf states increasingly began to focus their short-term hiring on labor migrants
Leveraging the World Cup
225
originating from Asian countries — the result, some argue, of state concerns that Arab
migrants were more likely to settle permanently and were more prone to engage in political
dissent over perceived unfair labor practices (Fargues 2011).
Table 2. Population Figures for Gulf Cooperation Council
Countries Based on Citizenship Status
Country Total
population
Citizen
population
Citizens as
percentage
of total
Expatriate
population
Expatriate
population as
percentage of
total
Bahrain 1,314,562 630,990 48 683,572 52
Kuwait 4,161,404 1,281,712 30.8 2,879,692 69.2
Oman 4,149,917 2,323,954 56 1,825,963 44
Qatar 2,421,055 346,211 14.3 2,074,844 85.7
Saudi
Arabia 30,770,375 20,708,462 67.3 10,061,913 32.7
United
Arab
Emirates
8,264,070 950,368 11.5 7,313,702 88.5
Total
(GCC) 51,081,383 26,241,697 51 24,839,686 49
Notes: Figure for Qatar’s total population taken from Qatar MDPS 2016, with citizen and expatriate gures
extrapolated from percentage estimation given by GLMM 2015. All other country gures obtained through
GLMM, which reports census gures reported between 2010 and 2015.
Sources: Gulf Labour Markets and Migration 2015; Qatar MDPS 2016 (see text).
Today, labor migration and worker welfare standards exist in a complex system that props
up the overall architecture of the migration life cycle linking Qatar to COOs. The benets
and costs of labor migration are a function of this complex system. Four elements, in
particular, frame the “push-pull” factors driving this system.
1. Demographic element
The limited pool of nationals available in CODs has put pressure on Gulf states to import
labor from abroad. In Qatar, the expatriate population is roughly six times the size of the
national population (GLMM 2015; Qatar MDPS 2016). Furthermore, according to the
Qatar Statistics Authority, 94 percent of the country’s working population are expatriates
(“Report: Qatar Growing” 2012). If existing demographic trends are permitted to continue,
Qatar will become younger, more male, more foreign, and more concentrated in the
country’s urban centers of Doha and Al Rayyan (Chalabi 2013; “Report: Most Nationals”
2013).
Several factors underlie these demographic trends. The rst, as described above, is the lofty
goals that animate the Qatari state’s development strategy. These goals, particularly the
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226
infrastructure planning now driving World Cup preparations, necessitate the importation
of foreign workers, despite state recognition of the demographic challenges such actions
invite. A second and closely related factor is the uneven implementation of workforce
nationalization, often referred to as “Qatarization.” As the GCC states pursue nationalization
policies with varying degrees of success, Qatar faces an uncompetitive national labor market
in which 96 percent of nationals work in the public or mixed public and private sectors and
in which demand for skilled national workers outpaces supply (Randeree 2012).
2. economic element
Citizens of COOs often view temporary jobs in the Gulf as lucrative opportunities to earn
higher wages than would be possible in their home countries. And with the savings generated
by these higher wages, labor migrants typically remit sizable portions of their earnings
back to their families living in COOs. According to the Center for Global Development,
in 2011 expatriates working in GCC countries remitted $75 billion to their home countries
(Clemens 2013). In Qatar alone, remittance outows in 2009 totaled roughly $9 billion, with
just under half of that gure going to Asian countries (Endo and Afram 2011). Moreover,
the impact of these remittance ows, in terms of economic growth and poverty reduction,
can be tremendous: remittances from Nepali workers in Qatar amounted to over $600
million, or 5 percent of Nepal’s GDP, in 2009 (Endo and Afram 2011).
Driving these economic gains abroad are economic shortcomings at home. Often, the
labor markets of COOs are marked by an oversupply of labor and, therefore, staggering
unemployment. Nepal, for example, suers from widespread unemployment and poverty,
motivating Nepali workers to seek job opportunities in the Gulf (Amnesty International
2011). It is precisely because of such high unemployment that some COO states, like the
Philippines in the 1970s, institutionalized labor migration as a potential remedy to their
countries’ economic stagnation (O’Neil 2004). The condition of COO labor markets — and
the capacity of COO governments to aect them — has much to do with “pushing” labor
migrants to seek jobs in the Gulf.
3. political element
The relationships between COOs and CODs, as well as those among COOs, have a bearing
on the migration life cycle. As Martin (2012) notes, many worker welfare abuses take
place beyond the reach of COOs, requiring active collaboration on the part of CODs. There
also exists a power imbalance accompanying COO-COD interactions. This imbalance is
evident, for example, in a 2013 incident tainting Qatar-Nepal relations. Notably, Nepal
recalled Maya Kumari Sharma, its ambassador to Qatar, following the publication of
her remarks in a Guardian article that compared Qatar to an “open jail” (Sharma 2013).
Days later, in a joint press conference held by Nepali and Qatari ocials, Nepali ocial
Mohammed Ramadan spoke of his country’s labor migrants as “safe and fully respected”
in Qatar (Doherty and Bakr 2013). Nepal, in other words, took a deferential position to the
Qatari state, rather than seizing upon the momentum for reform of a system that exploits
its nationals.
Leveraging the World Cup
227
Nepal’s decision to distance itself from Sharma’s comments can also be attributed to the
relationships among COOs — relationships that are at times competitive. The magnitude
of remittance ows, and the broader economic interests at stake, may incentivize COOs
to forego additional worker welfare protections or relax existing protections to increase
their share of workers in GCC labor markets (Shaham 2008; ILO 2010). Worker welfare
protections in the Philippines and Indonesia, for example, prompted Saudi Arabia to freeze
its hiring of domestic workers from either country. Capitalizing on the opportunity, Nepal
lifted its ban on domestic workers to GCC countries (ECOSOC 2013).
4. legal element
Current worker welfare protections governing the Gulf-Asia migration corridor exist in a
complex web of legal norms that are unevenly recognized and enforced by COOs and CODs.
For the Qatar-COO corridor, in particular, the legal norms regulating worker welfare can be
organized into three layers. The rst layer represents legal norms codied in international
law that might be said to dene universal principles, whether or not a state has ratied
the law (Abbott et al. 2000). This layer includes instruments as general as the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and as specic as the migrant-related conventions
of the International Labor Organization (ILO). To be sure, the enforceability and ecacy of
these instruments are not a given. The second layer entails bilateral agreements with COOs
that are more specic to the migration life cycle linking Qatar to a COO. The enforceability
and ecacy of these agreements, however, are also uncertain, especially as they often
apply across less than the full migration life cycle (Zahra 2013; Battistella and Khadria
2011). The nal layer of legal norms is composed of domestic laws, in particular Law No.
14 of 2004 Regulating Employment (“Labor Law”), Law No. 4 of 2009 Regulating the
Entry, Exit, Residence, and Sponsorship of Expatriates (“Sponsorship Law”), and Law No.
15 of 2011 Combatting Tracking in Human Beings (Zahra 2013). These laws — soon to
be joined by Law No. 21 of 2015 Regulating the Entry, Exit, and Residence of Expatriates
(“Law No. 21”), which became eective in December 2016 — dene a range of worker
welfare protections that are required of employers in Qatar that hire either national or
expatriate workers.
In spite of these norms and regulations, a number of limitations remain. First, Qatar and
its main COOs have not ratied the same instruments of international law. Such uneven
adoption makes it dicult to follow and enforce common standards (Martin 2012). Second,
to the extent facially useful law exists, both Qatar and COOs often lack the capacity or
motivation to enforce it. Qatar’s domestic laws, therefore, will continue to insuciently
address worker welfare abuses (HRW 2012).
B. Migration Life Cycle
Push-pull factors demonstrate the value of labor migration as a development tool for both
Qatar and COOs. Amid these benets, however, are abuses that often characterize the labor
migrant experience. Here, the term abuse encompasses a range of conditions, from human
rights violations in contravention of national and international laws, to poor living and
Journal on Migration and Human Security
228
working standards that run counter to widely shared norms, to structural impediments,
like misinformation, that expose labor migrants to unfavorable circumstances. Remedying
these abuses, and the conditions that make them possible, is central to any eort to improve
worker welfare.
Table 3. Summary of Tasks, Stakeholders, and Abuses
that Characterize the Migration Life Cycle
Recruitment
Tasks
Contractor obtains MLSA permission to hire foreign worker
Contractor subcontracts hiring to PEA
PEA uses manpower agency/labor broker to identify aspiring migrant
Stakeholders
MLSA
PEA
Labor broker
Construction client
Manpower agency
Aspiring migrant
Abuses Corruption Misinformation
Deployment
Tasks
Labor broker recruits deploying migrant to ll client opening
Deploying migrant obtains COO Ministry of Labor’s permission to
work
Stakeholders
MLSA
Qatar Ministry of Foreign Aairs
COO Ministry of Labor
PEA
Labor broker
Qatar Ministry of Interior
Qatar Chamber of Commerce
COO Embassy in Doha
Manpower agency
Deploying migrant
Abuses High-interest loan
Forced labor
False or substitution contract
Human tracking
Leveraging the World Cup
229
Table 3. (Continued) Summary of Tasks, Stakeholders, and
Abuses that Characterize the Migration Life Cycle
Employment
Tasks Ministry of Interior enforces labor laws
Stakeholders
MLSA
Construction client
COO embassy
Qatar Ministry of Interior
Employer/sponsor
Qatari national
Current Migrant
Abuses
Living conditions
Indenite detention
Working conditions
Irregular migration
Return
Tasks
MLSA issues exit visa to returning migrant
Ministry of Interior polices irregular migration
Returning migrant reintegrates into COO
Stakeholders
MLSA
Qatar’s court system
Employer/sponsor
Qatar Ministry of Interior
COO embassy
Returning migrant
Abuses Inhibited reintegration
A useful way to frame these abuses is in terms of the migration life cycle. The migration life
cycle represents the range of activities that mediate the relationship between an individual
migrant and the labor migration system from the time the migrant rst considers working
overseas to his or her employment abroad and eventual return to the home country. This
Journal on Migration and Human Security
230
cycle consists of four phases: recruitment, deployment, employment, and return (Table 3).
Worker welfare abuses may occur at any phase of the migration life cycle. Some abuses occur
within a particular phase, while others span multiple phases or, alternatively, contribute to
abuses in other phases. Using this frame, therefore, adds clarity to an otherwise complex
set of abuses and, as is discussed later, oers multiple points for policy intervention.
Additionally, this approach improves upon past approaches to worker welfare reform by
examining the transnational and systemic nature of abuses rather than xating on particular
actors — for example, governments or corporations — or phases.
1. recruitment phase
The migration life cycle begins with the recruitment phase, during which a contracting
or subcontracting rm operating in Qatar decides to ll an opening using a non-Qatari
worker. Firms — which typically work on behalf of a much larger client, such as the Qatar
Foundation, Qatar Rail, or Msheireb Properties — rst seek authorization from the Qatari
Ministry of Labor and Social Aairs (MLSA) to hire a certain number of workers from a
particular country. After receiving authorization, rms subcontract the hiring process to a
private recruitment agency, often referred to as a private employment agency (PEA). These
PEAs are Qatari rms licensed by the MLSA and hired for the purposes of identifying
foreign workers and shuttling them through the visa process in their home countries (Endo
and Afram 2011).
From here, PEAs use COO-based recruiters called manpower agencies to identify aspiring
labor migrants. Aspiring migrants are migrants who have an interest in seeking employment
in Qatar but have not yet begun the process of obtaining a work visa from their home
governments. While manpower agencies are tasked with locating, processing, and aiding
aspiring migrants with the visa authorization process, many rely on labor brokers to locate
aspiring migrants at the village level (Endo and Afram 2011).
Firms operating in Qatar often initiate the labor migration process in light of their clients’
outsized construction projects and high demand for foreign workers. Alternatively, citizens
of COOs who actively seek work opportunities in Qatar can initiate the process, though
this occurs along a dierent pathway. Social networks, travel agencies, and government-
to-government agreements are all options available to aspiring migrants hoping to secure
a work visa, though the exact nature of each varies among COOs (Migrant Forum in Asia
2011). Many aspiring migrants, however, go through manpower agencies, with labor
brokers as their primary points of contact. In this case, manpower agencies pool the names
of aspiring migrants and give them to PEAs when a request for foreign workers is received.
2. Deployment phase
Once the aspiring migrant commits to the visa authorization process, he becomes a
deploying migrant and the deployment phase begins. Though visa authorization was
already given by Qatar’s MLSA, the migrant must also obtain authorization from his home
country’s relevant ministry, usually the labor ministry. This additional layer of oversight is
the result of bilateral labor agreements concluded between Qatar and its main COOs and
Leveraging the World Cup
231
Table 4. Institutional and Legal Frameworks for Labor Migrant Countries of Origin
India Nepal Sri Lanka Bangladesh Philippines Pakistan
Core Laws
Emigration Act (1983)
Foreign Employment
Act (2007); Foreign
Employment Regulation
(2008)
Sri Lanka Bureau of
Foreign Employment
Act (1985)
Emigration Ordinance
(1982); Overseas
Employment and
Migrants Act (2013)
The Labor Code
(1974); Migrant
Workers and Overseas
Filipinos Act (1995)
Emigration Ordinance (1979);
Emigration Rules (1979);
Prevention and Control of
Human Tracking Ordinance
(2002)
Special Policies
Bilateral Agreement
(1985, 2007)
Memorandum of
Understanding (2005)
Memorandum of
Understanding
(2008)
Bilateral Agreement
(1988, 2008)
Memorandum of
Understanding
(1997)
Bilateral Agreement (1992,
2008)
Agencies
Ministry of Overseas
India Aairs
Ministry of Labor and
Employment
Ministry of Foreign
Employment
Promotion and
Welfare
Ministry of
Expatriates’ Welfare
and Overseas
Employment
Department
of Labor and
Employment;
Department of
Foreign Aairs;
Department of
Health; Department
of Social Welfare
Ministry of Overseas
Pakistanis and Human
Resource Development
Sub-agencies
Overseas Indian
Centres (in UAE and
US)
Foreign Employment
Promotion Board;
Department of Foreign
Employment
Bureau of Foreign
Employment
Bureau of Manpower,
Employment, and
Training;
Expatriates’ Welfare
Bank
Overseas
Workers’ Welfare
Administration;
Philippines
Overseas
Employment
Administration
Bureau of Emigration and
Overseas Employment
Journal on Migration and Human Security
232
requires that both countries manage the migration process (Table 4; Endo and
Afram 2011). In turn, labor migrants are responsible for securing all necessary legal
documents, including passports, visas, and foreign employment permits. From there,
the process varies considerably across COOs. Deploying migrants, for example, may
be required to participate in an interview with their home country’s relevant ministry,
during which time they sign an employment contract. Additionally, they may undergo
a pre-departure medical exam and take part in a government-mandated brieng
outlining their rights and responsibilities in the COD (Amnesty International 2011).
The visa authorization process is complicated and time-intensive, and as a result, most
deploying migrants turn to labor brokers as a source of logistical support. Brokers, in turn,
become responsible for preparing legal documents and updating deploying migrants on the
status of their applications. In some cases, brokers even accompany deploying migrants to
their interviews, medical exams, and pre-departure briengs (Amnesty International 2011).
As this process unfolds in the COO, a parallel process takes place in Qatar. The Qatari
PEA is responsible for collecting passport copies and signed employment contracts from
aspiring migrants and submitting them to the MLSA, after which the Ministry of Interior
issues their work visas. The contracts and job openings are also screened by the COO
embassies based in Doha as well as the Qatari Chamber of Commerce and its Ministry of
Foreign Aairs. Only after these screenings are complete can the relevant COO ministries
authorize the departure of deploying migrants, which comes in the form of a sticker placed
in migrants’ passports (Endo and Afram 2011). At this point, deploying migrants are given
an oer letter by the PEA along with a contract stipulating the terms of the job in Qatar.
3. employment phase
Upon arrival in Qatar, current migrants begin the employment phase during which they
are legally subject to Qatari immigration laws — in particular, the 2004 Labor Law and
the 2009 Sponsorship Law. The Labor Law includes a number of provisions regulating the
recruitment and employment of foreign workers — from setting workplace standards for
weekly hours and paid leave to mandating health and safety measures to safeguard against
occupational hazards (HRW 2013). The Sponsorship Law, meanwhile, requires that current
migrants have at all times a “sponsor,” oftentimes their employer, who assumes legal
responsibility for their stay while in Qatar. The notion of sponsorship is at the heart of the
Kafala system: a set of traditions, derived from the Bedouin principle of hospitality, which
Arab states have long used to manage guest workers (Khan and Harro-Tavel 2011). The
Sponsorship Law, as such, enshrines some of these traditions in law by holding sponsors
legally responsible for current migrants’ entry into and exit from Qatar, and by requiring
them to provide migrants with residence permits (HRW 2013). In practice, this means that
current migrants may change employers only if their sponsors consent, and that migrants
can leave the country only by obtaining an exit visa through their sponsors.
4. return phase
Upon completing their contractual work period and obtaining an exit visa, current migrants
enter the return phase of the migration life cycle, becoming returning migrants who must
Leveraging the World Cup
233
reintegrate economically and socially into their home countries. Here, COO policies diverge
considerably, with some countries, like the Philippines, providing substantial reintegration
services, such as loans for migrants to begin small businesses, while other countries oer
very little (Go 2012). The cyclical nature of the migration life cycle means that these same
returning migrants may take up opportunities within their home countries or reengage with
the labor migration process, once again becoming aspiring migrants.
C. Worker Welfare Abuses
At various points in the migration life cycle, labor migrants are exposed to abuses that
make possible the conditions of forced labor, human tracking, and indenite detention
that are commonly referenced by media and human rights groups. These abuses, in part,
are a function of deviations from the ideal process of labor migration described above. Of
course, these abuses are also the result of inadequate or poorly enforced laws in both Qatar
and COOs. As shown in Table 4, a number of factors — some resulting from structural
factors, others from diverging stakeholder interests — conspire to create these abuses.
1. recruitment abuses
During the recruitment phase of the life cycle, two abuses are common. One potential
abuse results from the corruption that often accompanies the management and distribution
of visas. According to a labor migration specialist at the ILO (personal communication
2014), with manpower agencies in COOs relying so heavily on labor brokers to identify
and to process aspiring migrants, a type of “auction” occurs: labor brokers bid on the right
to secure a work visa, permitting manpower agencies — and the Qatari PEAs that contract
with them — to pocket substantial sums prior to doing any work. This amount is later
passed on as debt to the aspiring migrant to whom the visa is given, contributing to the
debt burden that many labor migrants take on well before ever arriving in Qatar (Amnesty
International 2011).
Such outcomes are unsurprising, given how little regulation exists at the broker level. In
Nepal, for example, over 1,000 manpower agencies, all based in Kathmandu, were licensed
to recruit in 2005. At the time, these agencies relied on some 25,000 to 30,000 brokers
operating across the country (Verite 2012). Yet, as of 2013, only 500 brokers had actually
registered with the Department of Foreign Employment, Nepal’s regulatory authority
(Kern and Muller-Boker 2015). As a result, brokers are able to charge recruitment fees,
well above the legal limit, to aspiring migrants without fear of legal punishment. These
fees are in addition to the commissions that brokers receive from manpower agencies for
providing them with the names of aspiring migrants (Migrant Forum in Asia 2011).
A second potential abuse is the bevy of misinformation given to aspiring migrants
considering employment in Qatar. Two key sources of misinformation are labor brokers
and returning migrants. Labor brokers, in the eyes of many aspiring migrants, are a trusted
source for information on which CODs are best, which sectors are most lucrative, and
what steps are needed to secure a work visa. Brokers operate at the village level, often
knowing the aspiring migrant or his family well, and sometimes knowing, too, the COD
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from personal experience (Asfar 2009; Amnesty International 2011). Yet, because brokers’
income is dependent upon their ability to connect a job opening to an aspiring migrant,
their incentive to provide false information about the COD and the available job is high.
Similarly, returning labor migrants who have just completed their temporary assignment
in the COD often propagate, unknowingly or intentionally, inaccurate information. A
demographer with extensive research experience on labor migrants in the Gulf (personal
communication 2014) noted that some returning migrants exhibit an observable
improvement in their standard of living, giving aspiring migrants the impression of CODs
with “gold in the street.” Other returnees, however, have been the victims of forced labor
and would rather misrepresent their experiences abroad than admit their “failure” to family
and friends (Asfar 2009). Aspiring migrants, in turn, are drawn to an image of Qatar that
has little basis in reality.
2. Deployment abuses
The deployment phase also carries with it a number of abuses. One set of abuses results
from the labor brokers themselves. In light of the services they oer and the fees they
charge, brokers often assist migrants, most of whom have limited nancial means, with
procuring loans. These loans, however, come with high interest rates, some as high as 36
percent, thus giving migrants little chance of paying o their debt even in the event that
their Qatari job provides a reasonable wage (Amnesty International 2013; Jureidini 2014).
Additionally, before deploying migrants can depart their home countries for Qatar, they
must have in hand a demand letter, which is similar to an employment agreement, describing
the initial oer. Here, as one recruitment agency project manager (personal communication
2014) observed, manpower agencies and brokers will have deploying migrants pay a fee
to receive their demand letters. This exchange occurs despite laws in Qatar prohibiting
migrants from paying such fees as well as laws in COOs capping the amount that migrants
have to pay. A 2011 study by the Qatar National Human Rights Committee, for example,
noted that 53 percent of construction workers randomly surveyed in Qatar had paid fees of
some sort (Amnesty International 2013). In addition to these factors, there exists an urban-
rural divide that leads many migrants to take out additional loans to nance their travel to
and stay in state capitals where key parts of the visa authorization process take place.
As a result, deploying migrants accrue considerable debt. According to one report,
Bangladeshi migrants on average accrued just under $2,500 USD and Nepalese migrants
approximately $1,200 USD of debt (Agunias 2012). These gures do not include interest
rates attached to the repayment of these sums. Absent other sources of income, the jobs
awaiting these migrants in Qatar, however much they stray from stated expectations,
become their only means of paying down a growing debt burden. These circumstances trap
migrants into a type of forced labor.
A similar trap is created by the widely reported problem of false or substitution contracts.
False contracts are contracts that contain false information, such as inated salaries or
inaccurate job placements, but are nonetheless distributed to deploying migrants by
brokers and manpower agencies (Yeager 2008). Substitution contracts, on the other hand,
Leveraging the World Cup
235
are entirely new contracts with new terms that are given to migrants upon arrival to Qatar.
These contracts are often quite dierent in the salary, benets, and even work industries
stipulated in the original contract. In both cases, brokers and manpower agencies use
these tactics to circumvent — as is the case of Nepal — laws that require the COD job to
pay a minimum wage or provide particular benets to the deploying migrant (Amnesty
International 2013). As such, that migrants are being transported overseas on the basis of
deceptive or fraudulent claims — and subsequently being exploited for their labor once in
Qatar — indicates the presence of human tracking.
Also a problem during the deployment phase is the quality of pre-departure training.
According to a demography expert familiar with labor migration across the Qatar-COO
corridor (personal communication 2014), the mandatory trainings held in COOs just prior
to their departure are largely supercial and provide aspiring migrants with very little
information about Qatar’s legal environment or the resources available to labor migrants.
As Amnesty International (2013) observed in Nepal, as of 2011 there were 57 companies
authorized to conduct pre-departure briengs, but random surveys of returning migrants
revealed that some migrants had not known that pre-departure briengs existed, let alone
were mandatory, while still others had simply skipped them, owing to poor monitoring by
the government and intermediaries. The result has been that migrants, upon arrival in Qatar,
know very little about their rights, the ways in which those rights might be threatened, and
the resources available to seek a remedy.
3. employment abuses
Over the past decade, abuses occurring during the employment phase — more so than any
other phase — have caught the attention of states, intergovernmental organizations, and
media and human rights groups calling for worker welfare reform. These abuses have been
well-documented in recent reports by Human Rights Watch (2013), Amnesty International
(2013 and 2016), the International Trade Union Confederation (2014), and the International
Labor Organization (2016). At the heart of these abuses is the tension between the Kafala
system and Qatar’s 2004 Labor Law. Azfar Khan, a labor migration specialist with the ILO,
states that the aim of the Labor Law was to balance the rights and obligations of employers
and employees. Instead, he argues, that balance — and the legal enforcement of it — has
been hampered by Qatar’s continued reliance on the Kafala system, which “puts far too
much power in the hands of the employer/sponsor” (Khan 2014).
As a result, current migrants face deplorable working and living conditions. In the
construction sector, migrants may be forced to work well over 60 hours per week, be given
an inadequate supply of water in 100-plus degree weather, be unnecessarily exposed to
occupational hazards, and fail to receive the full regular or overtime wages due to them
(Amnesty International 2013).
Their living conditions, meanwhile, are equally troubling. Sponsors often place construction
workers in labor camps located on the outskirts of Qatari cities. These accommodations
typically t as many as 10 to 15 workers in a single room consisting of bunk beds and stone
oors. Occupants have no privacy, must sometimes endure missing or non-functioning air
conditioners, and in certain cases use their rooms as kitchens. In instances where separate
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kitchens are available, their appearance is substandard. The same holds true for bathrooms,
which are highly unsanitary. Reinforcing these abuses is the employer practice of passport
conscation, which, though illegal, routinizes these conditions as a facet of migrant life in
Qatar (Amnesty International 2013). These working and living conditions — accompanied
by local policies that subject construction sector workers to daily discrimination — have
become the norm for migrants who either nd their complaints consistently ignored or who
fear reprisals from sponsors upon reporting such conditions.
Abuses of these types can cause migrants to leave their jobs without permission. Under the
Sponsorship Law, sponsors are required to report such events — referred to as “absconding”
— to the Ministry of Interior. Absconding can result in migrants being ned, deported, or
even prosecuted on criminal charges (Amnesty International 2013). This is true even in
instances where current migrants are in fact eeing situations of abuse or nonpayment. In
these cases, the investigative process of the Ministry of Interior’s Search and Follow-up
Department (SFD), which enforces the law in matters of absconding, routinely ignores why
absconded migrants chose to run away from their sponsors or employers (“MOI Rounds”
2013).
As runaways, migrants become irregular migrants who operate outside Qatari labor laws.
Irregular migrants lack protections aorded to them under the Labor Law and are all the
more likely to be drawn into conditions of forced labor, working for employers who can use
the threat of an absconding report to coerce them into highly exploitative circumstances.
If found or reported, an irregular migrant may be deported or indenitely detained until a
time at which the government has completed the necessary arrangements to deport him.
In some cases, detention of irregular migrants has lasted as long as a year (Crepeau 2013).
Such procedures add an additional layer to current migrants’ circumstances of forced labor,
positioning them to take undesirable jobs due to crushing debt and then necessitating their
stay due to the risks that accompany becoming an irregular migrant.
4. return abuses
Although acquisition of an exit visa may permit returning migrants to escape welfare
abuses in Qatar, they still face another set of abuses upon return to their home countries.
Chief among these, according to an ILO study on returning Sri Lankan migrants, are
barriers to economic and social reintegration. Economically, this sample of returning
migrants often assumed jobs that were unskilled in character, rarely requiring the use of
skills acquired while working in the COD. Moreover, although 70 percent of the migrants
had secured a job in their home countries within six months of their return, those jobs
were of a quality and pay scale that indicated underemployment (ILO 2013b). Socially,
returning migrants reported certain challenges when reintegrating with their families and
communities, including a decline in the family’s economic situation as well as a tendency
not to form partnerships with or participate in community organizations (ILO 2013b). In
both instances, migrants have rarely sought out sources of external support to help with the
reintegration process, an apparent reection of the limited professional support services
available to them or a cultural context not conducive to seeking out such services.
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III. Mega Events
A sentiment commonly expressed by FIFA and Qatari ocials alike is that the 2022 World
Cup will serve as an agent of change in Qatar, one that will accelerate the undertaking
of appropriate labor reforms. Thus, Qatar’s World Cup chief, Hassan al Thawadi, called
the event a “catalyst to accelerate positive initiatives” that will result in “meaningful
progress” for worker welfare (Gibson 2014). Similarly, Theo Zwanziger, former member
of FIFA’s executive committee, called any decision to strip Qatar of hosting privileges
“counterproductive,” drawing attention away from human rights violations that will
otherwise still exist (Stevis 2014).
Of course, these statements are largely conjecture. It is unclear if a mega event, like the
World Cup, can indeed drive policy concessions in Qatar and, if so, along which causal
pathways.
To better understand the pathways that might lead to positive labor reform, this article
presents a theory of change organized around the UN Guiding Principles on Business
and Human Rights (the “Principles”). The Principles, which were endorsed by the UN
Human Rights Council in 2011, aim to enhance “standards and practices with regard to
business and human rights so as to achieve tangible results for aected individuals and
communities” (Ruggie 2011). More specically, they clarify the responsibilities of states
and business enterprises engaged in activities that threaten internationally recognized
rights. At their core are three pillars dened, in 2008, by the UN “Protect, Respect, and
Remedy” Framework (IHRB 2011):
1. The state obligation to protect against human rights abuses committed by third
parties.
2. The corporate responsibility to respect humans rights by performing due diligence.
3. The victim’s access to eective remedy through judicial and non-judicial means.
The Principles, on their face, have little to say about migrant rights, only mentioning migrant
workers in passing as a category of victim potentially in need of additional attention. When
applied to World Cup 2022, however, the Principles highlight the risks that the Qatari
state and corporations invite in the absence of sucient rights protections. These risks
are consequential, primarily because the World Cup is a public-private collaboration that
attracts international attention. State and corporate inattention to worker welfare abuses,
therefore, is tantamount to a poorly devised risk management strategy. In addition, the
failure of either sector — public or private — to follow through on its human rights
commitments has implications for the other sector.
A. Duty to Protect
The state duty to protect human rights is dened by two foundational principles. The rst is
state protection against human rights abuses within its territory by preventing, investigating,
punishing, and redressing such abuses (Ruggie 2011). Reiterating this duty is important in
a context where private actors, and not necessarily states, are responsible for the brunt of
rights abuses being committed. Even so, by fact of these abuses occurring within states,
those states become complicit, either directly when such abuses are attributable to them,
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or indirectly when they fail to take steps to address them. In Qatar, ongoing reports of
worker welfare abuses are linked to corporations — some Qatari, others joint venture —
that ultimately shape workers’ living and working conditions. This foundational principle,
therefore, locates these corporations and the abuses committed under their watch within the
purview of state obligation.
A second foundational principle is state recognition that the extraterritorial activities of
local companies may also infringe upon human rights (Ruggie 2011). Existing human
rights law does not extend state obligation to these activities. As such, states themselves
are responsible for setting expectations by dening and publicizing the laws and practices
that local businesses are subject to, even when operating beyond their home countries. For
Qatar, setting expectations is especially important vis-à-vis recruitment agencies. As Qatari
companies, these agencies engage in business activities abroad that may directly violate or
indirectly contribute to rights abuses.
These two foundational principles give rise to two areas in which public-private
collaborations, such as World Cup 2022, place pressure on the Qatari state to discharge
its human rights obligations and, in turn, take an active role in improving worker welfare.
Broadly, these areas might be categorized as “reputational risks” associated with possessing
a poor human rights record. More specically, though, these pressure points concern
national competitiveness and security.
1. national competitiveness
In its annual Global Competitiveness Report, the World Economic Forum (WEF) (2015)
denes competitiveness as “the set of institutions, policies, and factors that determine the
level of productivity of a country.” Productivity is based on a number of metrics, but two in
particular, institutions and labor market eciency, are relevant to the discussion on World
Cup 2022. Institutions refer to the legal and administrative framework that structures
interactions among individuals, businesses, and governments (Schwab and Sala-i-Martin
2015). This framework considers both public and private institutions: public institutions
in terms of government eciency, levels of corruption, and susceptibility to undue
inuence (among other factors), and private institutions in terms of corporate ethics and
accountability. Labor market eciency, meanwhile, considers how eectively workers are
allocated across an economy and whether they are incentivized to be productive (Schwab
and Sala-i-Martin 2015). The exibility of the market and the use of talent are thus critical.
According to WEF, Qatar is the most competitive economy in the Middle East and the
14th most competitive in the world, owing in large part to the strength of its institutions
and the presumption of an ecient labor market (Scwab and Sala-i-Martin 2015). Failure
to address worker welfare abuses, therefore, undermines perceptions of Qatari institutions
and, with it, national competitiveness.
First, continued worker welfare abuses demonstrate the limited capacity of Qatari
institutions. Promoting accountability, legal certainty, and transparency as well as enforcing
regulations in a consistent and coherent manner — these indicators, according to the UN
Guiding Principles, are part and parcel of a state’s duty to protect against rights abuses
(Ruggie 2011). These indicators also reect a state’s institutional quality. As such, Qatar’s
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inability to maintain its commitments to national and international law, including human
rights law, suggests a state with limited institutional strength.
Second, the perception of capacity-limited institutions sends the wrong signal to foreign
companies seeking to do business in Qatar. As the Guiding Principles make clear, states must
set expectations for whether and how they intend to meet their human rights commitments.
This is particularly important for businesses that require a certain level of legal certainty
and regulatory predictability to conduct operations. Hence, state uncertainty in this realm
exposes businesses — at least, those that are human rights-conscious — to unwanted risks
that might hurt their bottom line.
This dynamic was apparent in January of 2014 when Verisk Maplecroft, a UK-based
global risk and strategic consulting rm, downgraded Qatar to an “extreme risk” country
in its Working Conditions Index. The downgrade came in response to the “hazardous and
sometimes deadly conditions” facing labor migrants in the construction sector. Lizabeth
Campbell, a director at the rm, paired the downgrade with an observation: “These disasters
have prompted serious questions regarding corporate responsibility, which have forced
this issue high up the risk register for many multinational companies” (Verisk Maplecroft
2014). This perception, in turn, challenges Qatar’s continued ability to attract the foreign
rms so critical to executing its development objectives.
Third, Qatar’s development objectives do not exist in isolation but, rather, are in
competition for resources with other GCC countries. Dubai, for example, was awarded
the right to host World Expo 2020, another prominent mega event. Given the coincidence
of Dubai’s Expo and Qatar’s World Cup, as well as both countries’ heavy reliance on
foreign capital for development and foreign workers for manpower, continuation of worker
welfare abuses in Qatar may jeopardize its ability to attract the rms and workers needed
to complete its ambitious infrastructure projects (Kovessy 2013). This is especially true as
reports of Dubai’s human rights record, according to one migrant worker welfare specialist
(personal communication 2014), indicate improvements in its labor environment. Absent
improvements in its own reputation, Qatar may nd it increasingly dicult, over the next
six years, to make good on its World Cup vision.
2. national security interests
In pursuit of their national interests, states typically exercise power to shape the behavior
of other actors. Some states operationalize their power through bullying, others through
buying, and still others through persuading (Nye 2009). Many use a combination of all
three. How these tactics are used for larger foreign policy ends, according to Joseph Nye,
might be described as a state’s hard power or soft power strategy. Hard power, which is
dependent on a country’s economic and military might, refers to a state’s ability to coerce
or buy. Soft power, by contrast, concerns a state’s ability to attract — that is, to achieve
its interests by persuading other actors to favor those interests as well (Nye 2004). Both
strategies have implications for national security, depending on a country’s stock of hard
and soft power resources as well as its ability to deploy those resources toward particular
ends.
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Qatar’s national security strategy, in the eyes of many observers, is one predicated on
soft power. Mehran Kamrava, an academic at Georgetown University’s Doha campus,
describes Qatar’s inuence as a “subtle power” — one that is “rooted in a combination of
contextual opportunities and calculated policies” meant to augment its inuence over others
(Kemrava 2013). The origins of this strategy lie in the experiences of the small Gulf states
during Iraq’s 1990 invasion and occupation of Kuwait. The event, in the eyes of Qataris
like Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, then the son of the ruling emir (and later, head-of-
state when Qatar was named World Cup host), demonstrated the country’s vulnerabilities
— namely, its modest military force and its proximity to the Iran-Iraq-Saudi Arabia rivalry.
The event also showed Qataris the importance of securing powerful international partners,
like the United States, that would support the country in times of crisis (Ulrichsen 2012).
The result was Qatar’s pursuit of a soft power strategy aimed at creating interdependencies
and cultivating its “brand” as a modern and peace-loving state — a brand that might earn
it “friends when in need” (Dorsey 2013). This brand, Shadi Hamid argues, is critical to
Qatar’s ability to “leave its mark on the region’s politics” and, in turn, bolster its national
security (Siegal 2013).
Of course, Qatar’s brand — and its broader soft power appeal — rests on several pillars.
These include its activism in regional diplomacy, its messaging through Al Jazeera, its
cultural diusion via museums, and its research and innovation capacity vis-a-vis Education
City. All of the above, according to Collins (2012), is meant to “demonstrate a desire to
balance Arab traditions and Western modernization.” As such, ongoing worker welfare
abuses are likely to tarnish brand Qatar, particularly by undermining its diplomatic pull.
As a 2012 Gulf News report details, Qatar’s eorts in the area of conict mediation are
considerable and include forging agreements between Eritrea and Yemen (1996), Yemen
and its Houthi rebel movement (2007), rival Lebanese factions (2008), Sudan and Chad
(2009), and feuding Palestinian factions (2012), among others (Seale 2012). The breadth
of Qatar’s diplomatic undertakings, meanwhile, has earned it “an extensive and baing
diversity of friends.” These include security ties with the United States, commercial
activities with Iran, a nascent diplomatic dialogue with Israel, and cozy relations with
Islamist groups like Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood (Collins 2012).
But reports of continued worker welfare abuses, including the deaths of hundreds of Indian
and Nepali workers, threaten to undermine Qatar’s inuence in the diplomatic realm. One
threat comes from worsening relations with members of the European Parliament — the
legislative body of the European Union — that has been critical of the pace of Qatari labor
reforms. Over the span of ve months, the body passed an emergency resolution condemning
the abuse of construction workers, held a hearing during which parliamentarians spoke
of the need to reform the Kafala system, and soon after sent a delegation to meet with
Qatari authorities and push for substantial reform of existing sponsorship laws (European
Parliament 2013; Khatri 2014; Kovessy 2014a; European Parliament 2014).
A second threat arises from the impact of worker welfare abuses on Qatar’s foreign policy
priorities — that is, the Qatari state’s unexpected need to shift attention away from regional
matters and onto its human rights record. Qatar’s once dominant role in the region has given
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way to a string of failures — Egypt, Libya, and Syria chief among them.1 Compounding
these failures was the decision by Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates
(UAE), in 2014, to withdraw their ambassadors from Doha in response to perceived
Qatari meddling in their internal aairs (Dickinson 2014). Diplomatic relations were later
restored. Initially, however, rather than mending these relationships or resurrecting its role
as regional mediator, the Qatari state focused its energies on recasting its human rights
image. This was evident in Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al Thani’s decision, in February
2014, to restructure the Qatar 2022 Supreme Committee by replacing its board of directors
with members of his own cabinet while he stayed on as chair (Dorsey 2014; Scott 2014). As
a result, the small Gulf state increasingly ceded ground to Saudi Arabia, which, according
to political analyst Ayed al Manna, “regained its role” in regional politics (Agence-France
Presse 2014).
A third threat is the possibility of ongoing rights abuses creating a negative legacy for
World Cup 2022 — and what that could mean for Qatar’s sports diplomacy. According to
Kedar Pavgi and Nakul Kadaba (2012), the primary aim of Qatar’s endeavors in global
sport has been to position the country as a “leading power broker for business, diplomacy,
and foreign aairs between Western and Eastern states.” Put dierently, hosting major
international sporting events permits Qatar to reconcile its small stature — in a region of
more considerable powers — with its grand ambitions, demonstrating to a global audience
its aptitude for accommodating capitalist interests and Islamic values. In turn, Qatar’s
investments in global sport, from its sponsorship of top European clubs to its hosting of
the 2006 Asian Games, have buttressed its diplomatic brand, allowing it to forge nancial
and political alliances, such as those with France, and to play a mediator role during the
Arab Spring (Amara 2013). Hence, to host a World Cup, with all the attention that brings,
that is widely perceived as corrupt and dismissive of labor migrants’ welfare would be to
undermine Qatar’s diplomatic activism and, with it, its ability to cultivate friends when in
need.
B. Responsibility to Respect
Of the foundational principles listed in the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human
Rights, ve are particularly relevant to the corporate responsibility to respect human rights.
The rst two of these ve dene what responsibility means and identify the human rights
that businesses must safeguard. Principle 11, for example, states that business enterprises
should respect human rights by recognizing this responsibility as a “global standard of
expected conduct” that exists “over and above” state laws (Ruggie 2011). Principle 12
denes human rights as those internationally recognized rights included in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR); the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights (ICCPR); the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights
(ICESCR); and the International Labor Organization’s eight core conventions (Ruggie
2011). These two principles are particularly important in the Qatari context, as Qatar has
not ratied the ICCPR, the ICESCR, or three of the ILO’s eight core conventions. Even so,
1 Qatar actively supported Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Islamist militias in
Libya, and a number of opposition factions in Syria — moves that sowed greater instability in those countries
and eventually resulted in diminished Qatari clout with their ruling regimes (Shapiro 2013).
Journal on Migration and Human Security
242
contractors are responsible for these rights because they exist independent of legal liability
and enforcement (Ruggie 2011). Hence, they should avoid infringing on these rights as
well as address the adverse impacts of any rights they do violate.
The next three foundational principles outline the more particular responsibilities attached
to a respect for human rights. Principle 13 denes respect as encompassing both a business’s
direct activities as well as its relationships with other entities in its value chain. In other
words, whether a business directly causes adverse rights impacts or whether a trading
partner causes adverse impacts, the primary business is still responsible for preventing or
mitigating these harms (Ruggie 2011). Building on the concept of value chains, Principle
14 species that both the primary business and the partnering entity should respect human
rights. The way each should do so, however, diers depending on their proximity to the
abuse (Ruggie 2011). As such, respect is at times a capacity issue that varies from business
to business and from relationship to relationship. Finally, Principle 15 asks that businesses
adopt “policies and processes” to show that they are indeed respecting human rights (Ruggie
2011). These include a policy commitment, due diligence systems to identify and account
for rights abuses, and remediation processes to aid aected individuals or communities.
Although these ve principles call on business enterprises, such as foreign companies
and recruitment agencies operating in Qatar and COOs, to respect human rights, they are
non-binding. What makes them consequential, however, is their location in a larger risk
management system. In this context, rights abuses expose complicit companies to a variety
of risks — reputational, legal, and strategic — that can erode their business value and hurt
their bottom line if neglected (BHRI 2010). For corporate actors, therefore, these risks
are pressure points that, under the spotlight of World Cup 2022, may motivate behavioral
change.
1. reputational risk
Business brands, according to the World Intellectual Property Organization (2013), serve as
a “guide for consumers and a means for companies to build a reputation and an image in the
marketplace.” Increasingly, due to the widespread availability of information and the pace
of technological change, brands have become companies’ most valuable intangible assets
(Abraham et al. 2012). Perceptions of human rights abuses, therefore, weigh heavily on a
company’s reputation and, as a result, its brand. Rights violations threaten company share
price, are often dicult to refute, and, even when proven to be false, still leave a mark on a
business’s brand that takes time to undo. Human rights due diligence thus oers companies
an opportunity to head o these reputational challenges with the intention of preserving
customer loyalty as well as lucrative governmental and commercial opportunities that are
based on contracts with strict human rights criteria (Amis, Brew, and Ersmarker 2005).
In Qatar, ongoing worker welfare abuses, particularly those linked to forced labor and
human tracking, bear serious consequences for contracting companies’ brand value.
Nicholas McGeehan states that construction rms in Qatar “cannot aord not to be there
but it’s also an unregulated market that poses reputational risks” (Hurst 2013). For example,
CH2M Hill, an American rm contracted by the Qatar 2022 Supreme Committee for
Delivery and Legacy (Q22) to oversee its construction projects was singled out by Human
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Rights Watch in 2012 (HRW 2012) and by the International Trade Union Confederation
(ITUC) in 2015 (ITUC 2015), as well as in numerous newspaper articles and in a petition
entitled “Free Qatar’s Modern Slaves,” which to date has garnered over 828,000 signatures
(AVAAZ 2016). CH2M Hill has come under scrutiny because of its oversight position,
and because one of its divisions, the UK engineering rm Halcrow, conducted work in
Lusail City, where workers reported instances of withheld pay, conscated passports, and
forced labor (Pattisson 2013). As Michael Stephens of the Royal United Services Institute
has observed, even if these reported abuses were the result of an individual foreman,
CH2M Hill cannot “abdicate responsibility because [it plays] a large role in setting the
gold standard for labour rights” (Hurst and Withers 2013). These abuses, in line with UN
Guiding Principle 13, have led activists to call on CH2M Hill to take a more proactive role
in ending worker exploitation across its value chain. Other contracting companies will
similarly be scrutinized — and their brands similarly tested — over the next six years.
2. legal risk
Certain countries present unusually substantial and uncertain legal risks for multinational
companies (Institute of Business Ethics 2012). In such environments, which include those
in which executive authority is vested primarily in a single individual or family, the extent to
which host country laws are enforced is often unclear, and, as a result, companies are more
prone to treat their legal obligations like optional guidelines (Amnesty International 2013).
Doing so, however, runs the risk of violating home country laws — those laws enacted by
the countries in which these multinational companies are incorporated or headquartered —
including those laws that prohibit human rights violations. One consequence is company
exposure to litigation. In addition to the potential for reputational risk, litigation may mean
increased exposure to the costs of legal services, as well as to the costs of out-of-court
settlements and adverse court judgments. Extraterritorial suits for human rights violations
have already taken place in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Belgium, and
Australia (Amis, Brew, and Ersmarker 2005). Another consequence of legal risk is exposure
to criminal penalties. In the area of labor migrant recruitment, companies and individuals
found to be complicit in forced labor or human tracking are subject to criminal sanctions,
including, in the case of individuals, imprisonment (Verite and Manpower Group 2012).
The goal of due diligence, in these cases, is to assess which human rights violations a
company is most susceptible to, in light of home country laws, and to prevent or mitigate
them accordingly.
Legal risk is a growing concern for companies operating in Qatar, where the Labor Law,
when enforced, imposes civil ($824 to $82,000 in nes) and criminal (six months to 15
years in prison) penalties on individuals complicit in forced labor and human tracking
(Amnesty International 2013). This is especially true for the UK construction rms
operating in Qatar, including, among others, G&T, Aecom, Buro Happold, Grimshaw, and
Paul Dollin. According to a 2013 report in Building, a UK periodical on the construction
industry, British attorneys were examining the legal liabilities of these rms if found in
breach of Qatari labor laws. Echoing the message of UN Guiding Principle 13, Daniel
Leader of the UK law rm Leigh Day points out that construction rms “need to be sure
of the way they are operating with regard to their own workforce but also be alive to
the behaviour of subcontractors” (Hurst 2013). As such, his rm is oering its services,
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on a conditional fee basis, to labor migrants and families based in Qatar whose rights
have been violated by UK construction rms. These legal risks will only grow as the
pace of infrastructure development quickens with the development of eight stadiums now
underway.
3. strategic risk
Complicity in human rights abuses may deny businesses a range of opportunities that can
strategically position them ahead of their competitors. One opportunity is the competitive
advantage businesses gain by building a base of knowledge and experience in human
rights due diligence. Such a base permits businesses to enter new markets, like those in
the GCC, where rights abuses exist but where the expertise to address them is still lacking
(Amis, Brew, and Ersmarker 2005). A second opportunity arises when businesses are able
to leverage their human rights practices to attract top talent in their industry. A 2005 paper
by the International Business Leaders Forum found that companies with stronger rights
records observed a 45 percent increase in unsolicited job applications, while companies
with poorer rights records exhibited a decline in applications (Amis, Brew, and Ersmarker
2005). This advantage is all the more important in the GCC context, where the presence of
foreign rms continues to increase, along with their need for top talent. A nal opportunity
comes in the form of productivity gains. Businesses with strong human rights cultures
are associated with more productive workers who aid protability, as well as with fewer
workplace accidents, strikes, bottlenecks, and delays that cut into their bottom lines (Amis,
Brew, and Ersmarker 2005; BHRI 2010). Ignoring these opportunities by neglecting human
rights, therefore, risks leaving value on the table.
That companies in Qatar should capitalize on these opportunities is a point not lost on
observers of Qatar’s World Cup preparations. A migrant worker welfare specialist based
in Qatar (personal communication 2014) cited Shell, which had built a 53,000-person
accommodation for workers just outside Doha and instituted a worker grievance mechanism
similar to a union, as an example of a company that had invested in labor rights and, in
turn, was witnessing productivity gains. Similarly, James Ryan of FSI Worldwide (FSI), a
UK-based ethical recruitment agency, noted that, in his rm’s experience, productivity was
positively linked with satisfying working and living conditions (personal communication
2014). Such a model should be attractive to states and companies with limited human
rights expertise. From FSI’s modest beginnings placing Nepali ex-Gurkhas in the security
industry in Iraq and Afghanistan, to its expansion into other sectors like construction and
other markets like the UAE, FSI’s growth demonstrates the opportunities available to rms
that embrace the corporate responsibility to respect human rights. FSI’s model is now
considered a best practice by the ILO, and the agency is one of many recruitment agencies
that may be included in a Qatar Foundation initiative to create and disseminate a list of
preferred recruitment agencies to contractors (ILO 2013a).
IV. The Qatari Record
Worker welfare abuses implicate far more than Qatar’s human rights record — at stake,
too, is its development trajectory. Whether for this reason or others, the Qatari government
Leveraging the World Cup
245
Table 5. Migration-related Reforms Announced by Qatari Authorities
Announcement
date Reform categories
February 2014
Immigration procedures Occupational standards Accommo-
dations
Grievance
mechanisms
Law
enforcement
Tightening occupational safety
standards for workers and
raising penalities for non-
payment of wages
Planning and
constructing new worker
accommodations,
including 25,000 bed
complex at Al Baraha
and 6,000 worker facility
in Barwa Recreation
City
Hiring legal experts
and creating
educational materials
and hotlines
accessible in South
Asian languages
Increasing number
of trained labor
inspectors by
25 percent and
conducting over
11,500 random
spot checks of
workplaces
Building capacity for
additional 70,000 beds
through private sector
developments
May 2014
Amending transfer rules so that
workers can change employers
after completion of existing
contracts or, in the case of open-
ended contracts, after ve years of
service
Increasing penalty for
conscation of worker passports
ve-fold and circulating model
contracts for employers to use
when drafting employment
agreements
Strengthening worker
accommodation
standards and
formulating more severe
penalties for violations
Launching electronic
system to eld worker
complaints
Expanding size
of inspection sta
by additional 60
investigators
Instituting automated “Metrash2”
system for granting workers exit
visas after 72 hour grace period
Requiring direct bank transfers
of wage payments and raising
penalties incurred for late
payments
Developing new
accommodations to
house 200,000 additional
workers
Replacing employer nancial
liability for workers with process
governed by state’s civil and
commercial laws
Prohibiting workers from
laboring in sun during hours
of 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM from
mid-June through end of August
Sources: MLSA 2014; DLA Piper 2014; Qatar Ministry of Interior 2014; Kovessy 2014b; Black, Gibson, and Booth 2014; Qatar-based academic (personal communication) 2016 (see text).
Journal on Migration and Human Security
246
has undertaken a series of reforms over the past few years aimed at improving living and
working conditions for its migrant population. These reforms have followed two parallel
tracks. One track is that taken by the country’s frontline ministries for labor migration
— namely, the MLSA and the Ministry of Interior (Table 5). The rst set of reforms,
a response to growing criticism from ocial bodies like the European Parliament, was
published in a February 2014 statement in The Guardian (MLSA 2014); just months later,
a second set, coinciding with the release of a government-commissioned study by the law
rm DLA Piper, was announced by Qatari ocials during a press conference (DLA Piper
2014; Ministry of Interior 2014; Kovessy 2014b). Animating both sets of reforms, as Qatari
ocials (personal communication 2014) have intimated, is the state’s goal of replacing
the Kafala system with a process premised on employment contracts and overseen by
the Ministry of Interior (Black, Gibson, and Booth 2014). Complementing these ad hoc
measures, more broadly, were multilateral ones, such as Qatar’s adoption of the 2014 GCC
Human Rights Declaration, that aim to reconcile the UDHR with the region’s cultural and
religious particularities.
A second track is that pursued by the World Cup’s largest client organizations, notably
the Qatar Foundation, a private nonprot responsible for administering Education City,
and the Q22, the organizing committee charged with overseeing World Cup preparations.
Both clients, currently responsible for the development of eight World Cup sites, have
created worker welfare standards to clarify the obligations assumed by contracting
parties (Qatar Foundation 2013; Q22 2014). These standards include measures spanning
recruitment, employment, accommodations, and transportation and have been embedded
in all subsequent contracts tendered by these clients (Jureidini 2014). Where the track one
reforms cut to the very viability of the migration system, the track two reforms largely
concern management of that system.
Although these measures appear promising on their face, it is not clear whether they
will translate into tangible changes in workers’ lives, especially in a timeframe that will
accommodate the growing pace of construction eorts in Qatar. It is also not clear if these
reforms are genuine or, rather, merely lip service aimed at pacifying the chorus of critics
calling on FIFA to strip Qatar of its hosting rights. Indeed, when Amnesty International
researchers “confronted [Qatari ocials] with . . . evidence of human rights abuses” —
evidence that had been collected from February 2015 to February 2016 — “the government’s
response was apathetic at best” (Amnesty International 2016a, 4, 73).
Drawing on interviews with a number of experts familiar with Qatar’s capacity and
motivation to undertake reforms, this author is pessimistic about the prospect for eective
reform of Qatar’s migrant labor law. In terms of “huge reforms” on the horizon, as one Q22
ocial put it (personal communication 2014), the Qatari government has long promised such
changes without fully delivering. A project manager at one recruitment agency (personal
communication 2014) noted that he had long heard rumors of major reforms to the Kafala
system, but observed ocial government pronouncements to be routinely delayed and,
once made, often lacking in substance. His observation is conrmed by the new evidence
from Amnesty International (2016) that uncovered widespread and continuing abuses —
chief among them, squalid accommodations and conscation of passports without penalty
— tied to the Khalifa International Stadium site.
Leveraging the World Cup
247
Underscoring the above is the government’s long-stalled eort to pass and implement its
February 2014 reforms. The reforms, initially set to be implemented in March, and then
May, drew little support from Qatar’s business community and Shura Council (legislative
body) and were delayed indenitely (Walker 2015). Only in December 2015, ultimately,
were the reforms signed into law as Law No. 21 of 2015 Regulating the Entry, Exit, and
Residence of Expatriates. Yet, those reforms fell far short of the MLSA and Ministry of
Interior’s initial promises. For example, when Law No. 21 nally takes eect in December
2016, most “migrant workers will still be required to obtain their sponsor’s approval to
change jobs or to leave the country” (Amnesty International 2016a, 67).2 Law No. 21 would
even “prevent workers who might be victims of abusive practices from freeing themselves
from these situations” (ILO 2016). It is true that Law No. 21 contains language prohibiting
passport conscation. However, so does the current law, the 2004 Labor Law, and that
law has essentially been enforced only in the breach (ILO 2016). Indeed, the ILO has
found that “in small enterprises . . . employers [have] systematically conscated [worker]
passports” (ILO 2016), while the ndings of Amnesty International suggest that the practice
is common at larger companies as well (Amnesty International 2016a, 39). Given that Law
No. 21 expressly creates an apparently wide loophole “allow[ing] employers to retain the
passport or travel document of any employee, with their consent” (Amnesty International
2016a, 74), the problem of passport retention is unlikely to improve much under that law,
even assuming stricter enforcement.
A similar level of skepticism is warranted regarding the impact of the worker welfare
standards. First, although the standards have been adopted by a number of major clients,
including Msheireb Properties, Qatar Rail, Q22, and the Qatar Foundation, there remain
other major construction clients, like Doha Port and the Civil Aviation Authority, that
have not adopted them. Second, the standards devised by the Qatar Foundation and Q22,
while largely similar in makeup, dier in some key respects — such as the grievance
mechanisms to which workers can turn — leaving company auditors as well as employees
with an inconsistent baseline against which to scrutinize labor practices across contracts
and construction sites. Third, these standards only apply to contracts going forward, which
means that contractor practices giving rise to hundreds of migrant deaths since 2012 will
be allowed to continue until the work previously contracted for is completed. In fact, Q22,
which expects to have some 50,000 construction workers on its projects over the next six
years, only had 38 construction workers, through 2014, protected by its welfare standards
(personal communication 2014). And fourth, auditing of construction sites and worker
accommodations will depend on the MLSA’s uncertain ability to handle the hundreds of
thousands of labor migrants projected to arrive in the country over the next several years.
With respect to the fourth point, it is relevant to note that, in the case of Q22’s construction
sites, “the present administration of the Standards is failing” (Amnesty International 2016a,
66). Although the size of the labor inspection force has increased in recent years, a “relatively
small number of violations [have been] detected in comparison to the large number of
migrant workers in the country” (ILO 2016). The problem of inadequate enforcement is
particularly acute for workers at smaller companies (ILO 2016; Amnesty International
2 Law No. 21 does not apply to domestic workers (ILO 2016), and even as to migrant construction workers,
it signicantly relaxes sponsorship requirements only for those workers who have “reach[ed] the end of a
xed term contract” or who “have completed ve years of work” (Amnesty International 2016a, 67).
Journal on Migration and Human Security
248
2016a, 65). For those workers — and for workers at larger companies as well — an over-
reliance on self-reporting severely limits the utility of the worker welfare standards. As
Amnesty International has noted in this very context, self-reporting “is a poor enforcement
tool,” as “companies that abuse human rights are often willing to make false claims in self-
reporting processes” (Amnesty International 2016a, 65-66). This self-reporting problem is
not cured by the existence of three separate bodies charged with validating the self-reports,
for the rst body itself relies on unveried information provided by companies; the second
had, as of March 2016, never met; and the third, the MLSA, suers from documented
“weaknesses in the inspection and enforcement process” (Amnesty International 2016a,
65-66).3
In light of these facts, the current slate of reforms frequently prescribed by civil society
groups and seemingly endorsed by Qatari bodies is unlikely to substantially improve
worker conditions. On the one hand, the framing of the policy problem — often in terms of
the intrinsic value of human rights commitments — is largely disconnected from Qatar’s
development strategy and priorities. On the other hand, the method of execution — placing
the onus for change on the Qatari government — misses other dimensions of the problem,
motivating Qatari institutions to stall, if not avoid change altogether. A new approach,
therefore, is in order.
V. Conclusion and Recommendations
As the preceding analysis demonstrates, worker welfare reform is not an enterprise that
the Qatari government can take up alone, even if it were so inclined. Certainly, the Qatari
government has primary responsibility for remedying ongoing abuses and, therefore, should
take the lead in creating an environment that supports workers’ human rights. This may
include, among other things, increasing the capacity of labor inspection forces so that the
current over-reliance on self-reporting by employer is eliminated, closing the loophole that
allows employers to retain a migrant’s passport upon that migrants’ consent, and developing
worker welfare standards that have the force of law and that apply to all construction
workers. Still, the scale of the problem and the urgency of the moment require that other
organizations oer their services in a manner that can alleviate the suering experienced
by labor migrants across the migration life cycle. Timely and feasible solutions, in other
words, stem from collaborative eorts that draw upon the energy and expertise of multiple
stakeholders capable of advancing labor protection in ways that the Qatari state cannot or
will not do.
This article recommends the adoption and implementation of four policy proposals by other
stakeholders, each targeting a particular phase of the migration life cycle. Together, these
four proposals provide a novel approach to preventing worker welfare abuse. The value
of these policy options lies in their ability to satisfy three overarching considerations: (1)
Does the option align with the mission and values of key stakeholders; (2) Can the option
3 FIFA recently announced an intention to create an oversight body of its own. While the announcement
was characterized by Amnesty International as a “small [sign] of progress” (Amnesty International 2016b),
Human Rights Watch greeted the announcement more skeptically, with its Director of Global Initiatives
stating that, “[b]y announcing a new body to protect workers, FIFA gets to look like they’re taking the issue
seriously — without having to put any pressure on the Qataris to actually take it seriously” (Worden 2016).
Leveraging the World Cup
249
be implemented in light of these stakeholders’ core capabilities; and (3) Does the option
have enough support from a critical mass of stakeholders to be implemented and sustained?
What follows is a description of each option and the context in which each is warranted.
First, Qatari construction clients, like the Qatar Foundation, should create a Preferred
Suppliers List — consisting of recruitment agencies engaged in ethical recruitment
practices — that can be referenced by Qatar-based contractors seeking manpower. Such
a measure is consequential in an environment where contractors and subcontractors face
increasing pressure to address worker welfare abuses committed at any point along their
value chains. This pressure includes admonitions to discontinue relationships with corrupt
recruitment agencies or unregulated labor brokers. Yet, contractors and subcontractors,
lacking knowledge of industry leaders that employ responsible practices, may be unable to
make this change without further guidance.
As such, Qatari clients should conduct due diligence on recruitment agencies operating
in Qatar and COOs that employ ethical recruitment practices. Additionally, they should
limit eligibility for inclusion in the list to those rms that have a record of placing aspiring
migrants (1) in concrete and specic jobs, (2) at responsible companies, (3) with suitable
working and living conditions, and (4) via clear and dependable contracts (Verite and
Manpower Group 2012).
The second recommendation is that COO-based governmental and nongovernmental
institutions should make available low-interest, preferential loans to help deploying
migrants nance the costs of the deployment phase. In the absence of Qatari companies
covering migrants’ visa costs, labor brokers will remain a key source of nancing. Poor
record keeping and high-interest rates, however, make these loans particularly burdensome
for deploying migrants, who often assume high levels of debt and, as a result, are forced to
commit to jobs in substandard conditions simply to pay down these debts. This debt burden
is the primary cause of conditions of forced labor.
COO governments and commercial banks, in turn, should develop loan schemes specic to
labor migrants, such as “pre-departure,” “housing,” or “small business” loans, recognizing
that the economic benets of debt reduction outweigh the losses incurred by extending
low-interest loans (Asfar 2009). One option that may be worth considering is to devise
loans whose repayment schemes are based on the remitted portions of salaries and whose
penalties, in case of default, are reasonable.
Third, international organizations — most appropriately, the International Organization
for Migration (IOM) — should establish a Migrant Resource Center (MRC) in Doha to
provide information, counseling, and legal services to labor migrants. Although state and
nongovernmental organizations are beginning to invest in programs that provide aspiring
migrants with information and services in their home countries, those programs, in general,
are inadequately used and poorly constructed. Compounding the problem is the fact that
few such programs exist for migrants once they arrive in Qatar. IOM and other actors have
experience establishing MRCs as “one-stop-shops” for delivering information and services
to migrants, albeit primarily in their home countries (IOM 2012). Increasingly, however,
MRCs are being set up in CODs, including Bahrain and the UAE.
Journal on Migration and Human Security
250
An MRC in Doha would be responsible for creating and distributing informational resources
on in-country laws, health and safety risks, money transfer mechanisms, and other sources
of support. It could also oer job search and training programs as well as general subject
workshops in areas such as project development and nancial management (Tacon and
Warn 2009). More innovatively, it could serve as a congregation site for members of
diaspora communities, enabling migrants to build social networks and develop community
initiatives and activities. And, if resources permitted, it could provide legal and counseling
services to migrants to aid them in navigating Qatar’s legal system and to cope with the
psychological aspects of migration (e.g., separation from family).
Finally, governmental institutions of COOs should conduct reintegration workshops for
returning labor migrants. Upon return to their COOs, labor migrants face a number of social
and economic barriers when reintegrating into their home communities. Some governmental
programs exist that facilitate this reintegration, such as the Filipino government’s provision
of small business loans and skills training to returning migrants (Go 2012). Select IOM
country oces, meanwhile, provide returning migrants with counseling, medical checks,
transportation, and grants, among other services, as part of the Assisted Voluntary Return
and Reintegration (AVRR) program, a product of the 2002 Bali Process on human tracking
and transnational crime (IOM 2012). Both forms of assistance, however, are small in scale
and encompass few COOs. More importantly, these actors often place greater emphasis on
pre-departure services than reintegration services, overlooking critical migrant needs at the
end of the migration life cycle.
Governmental agencies of COOs, therefore, should provide reintegration training that
includes, among other services, skill development, nancial literacy, repatriation assistance,
and individual and family counseling. They could partner with existing in-country
organizations, such as MRCs, unions, or civil society groups that have the infrastructure to
host training workshops. And given the resource-constrained environments in which they
operate, they should target returning migrants as possible worker welfare counselors who
can carry out reintegration trainings.
Reform of Qatar’s construction sector requires that stakeholders adopt comprehensive,
sustainable, and pragmatic measures to improve worker welfare. The above four options
attempt to do so by crafting approaches that focus on abuses particular to the construction
sector, make the best use of actors’ core capabilities, and emphasize each option’s
probability of success and size of impact on migrant lives. Indeed, as reform advocates
seize the present moment in which international scrutiny resulting from the World Cup
aords them considerable leverage, they must craft an agenda that aligns business interests
with rights considerations — if they are to remedy the abusive practices tarring so grand
an event.
Leveraging the World Cup
251
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