reported the newspaperKeeperBritish testimonies from foreign workers said they were harassed during their work in Qatari hotels that host World Cup matches.
The newspaper said it and The Fuller Project, which publishes stories about women, interviewed five women who worked in different hotels in Qatar between 2017 and 2022. They spoke about their experiences and detailed how they are. been subjected to sexual harassment and physical and verbal abuse.
Most of the hotels where the women victims worked were among the approximately 100 now approved by FIFA to house fans and players attending the World Cup, the newspaper showed.
Among the women, one named Hope, speaking on the phone from her home in Kenya, said her supervisor at work made a sexual request to her over an 18-month period since mid-2020.
He added that when she rejected his efforts, he assigned her additional cleaning work without giving her additional pay.
Another worker, Sally, also from Kenya, said she was trying to finish a cleaning shift at a hotel one day when a guest approached her and asked for a kiss.
Sally refused the request and went to complain to her supervisor, but he told her, “You’re a woman and you know how to deal with your problems.”
What she experienced at the luxury hotel still affects her, says Sally: “I never want to go back.”
In recent months, there have been documented violations suffered by tens of thousands of migrant workers who have traveled thousands of kilometers to help build Qatar’s dream of hosting the World Cup.
However, rights groups say the issues facing migrant women have not been highlighted or investigated to the same extent and their voices have been largely absent from the debate on migrant workers’ rights in the run-up to the tournament.
Although the country’s expatriate workforce is dominated by men, government data shows nearly 300,000 female migrants were working in Qatar as of June this year.
The paper shows that testimonies from the women interviewed, as well as testimony from experts who have worked extensively with female hospitality workers in Qatar, indicate that few of them feel entitled to report sexual harassment if it occurs.
Qatari spokesmen told the newspaper the stories of the five women were individual cases and could not be generalized to all workers.
The newspaper indicated that FIFA confirmed that they take any allegations of misconduct seriously and have clear procedures in place for anyone wishing to report such incidents.
