At stake is how Qatar treats hundreds of thousands of migrant workers, whom it needs to build a vast World Cup infrastructure costing about $100 billion. Calling the workers "World Cup 'slaves,'" the paper detailed how they were housed in cramped barracks with few services, and said that hundreds were effectively trapped in Qatar, unable to return home after construction companies had seized their passports and then not paid them for months. Qatar's Supreme Committee drafted a "2022 Workers Charter" last March, promising that the workers building World Cup sites would enjoy decent housing, prompt pay and the freedom to leave their jobs and return home-all drastic departures from the way business is often done in the Gulf states. At the time, Qatar's World Cup Supreme Committee stated that its charter was "Just the first step in our overall strategy for improving worker's welfare in Qatar." When TIME interviewed the committee head Hassan al-Thawadi in Doha in July, he said officials wanted the tournament to be a "Catalyst" for transforming the country, and that as part of that, his committee was coordinating with human rights organizations to overhaul decades of grim labor practices.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/time/topstories/~3/VsvOjgHq5Ks/
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