Qatar World Cup 2022: Amnesty hits out at UK silence on human rights

Amnesty International has criticised Greg Hands, the junior minister at the Department for International Trade, for travelling to Qatar to seek contracts for British companies ahead of the 2022 World Cup without apparently highlighting the human rights abuses faced by migrant workers building venues for the event.

Mr Hands was in Qatar on Wednesday for a conference in Doha called ‘Sport is Great’, billed as an opportunity “for UK companies to meet with key decision-makers and buyers actively looking to procure services to support projects in the run-up to the 2022 Fifa World Cup”.

Amnesty International said it was “extremely disappointing” that Hands had not spoken out about human rights ahead of the visit, saying Qatar’s construction sector was “rife with abuse”. This included the treatment of the thousands of foreign workers, mainly from south Asian nations, many of whom have been put up in squalid accommodation, had their pay withheld or delayed, and their passports confiscated.

FIFA faces legal action in the Swiss courts over its alleged complicity in the mistreatment, amid calls for football’s world governing body to move the 2022 tournament away from the Gulf state.

Mr Hands’ department said it would check whether the minister planned to raise any human rights concerns with his hosts. However, they were not mentioned in an English language newspaper in Qatar.  The article praised the absolute monarchy’s “ambitious sporting vision” in securing the World Cup.  Hands wrote, This is an exciting time for Qatar’s vision, and the UK has the opportunity to be a strategic partner to ensure all these events are as successful as possible for spectators, competitors and organisers alike,” and was,  “looking forward to touring some of the sites where nations will be pinning their hopes of World Cup victory in 2022.”

Allan Hogarth, Amnesty International UK’s head of policy and government affairs, “Greg Hands’ job involves banging the drum for trade, but it’s extremely disappointing he couldn’t find room in his article to make even a passing mention of the dangerous and exploitative conditions many of the migrant labourers building Qatar’s gleaming new sports venues find themselves in. The stadiums, roads and other infrastructure for World Cup 2022 are being constructed by often poorly paid people from places like India and Nepal – migrant workers who routinely have their passports confiscated and regularly work excessively long hours in intolerably hot and dangerous conditions. Qatar’s construction sector is rife with abuse, as we and others have been highlighting for years. We’d like Mr Hands to raise this with his hosts in Doha and show he understands that the 2022 World Cup shouldn’t be based on violating the human rights of hundreds of thousands of exploited workers.”