(CNN) — Several human rights organizations have renewed their harsh criticism of Qatar and FIFA for their flagrant violations of human rights dossiers and exploitation of migrant workers before and during the 2022 World Cup.
The World Cup final on Sunday coincides with International Migrant Day and Qatar National Day.
Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Equidem and Migrant Defenders and other groups have called on Qatar and FIFA to do more on behalf of the migrant workers who staged the 2022 World Cup.
Steve Cockburn, head of economic and social affairs at Amnesty International, said in a statement to CNN: ‘As beautiful as football often is, the cost of the tournament was exorbitant for hundreds of thousands of workers who paid illegal recruitment fees. , had their wages stolen or even disappeared.” their lives”.
“These workers and their families deserve reparations and we still expect FIFA and Qatar to deliver justice to all those who made this World Cup possible,” added Cockburn.
Minky Worden, director of global initiatives at Human Rights Watch, agrees with Cockburn on Qatar’s labor reforms, writing in a blog post on Friday: “Qatar’s labor reforms have also come too late, too narrow in scope or implemented in way too weak”. it doesn’t benefit many workers.”
“Qatar will indeed be remembered for the World Cup, for all the wrong reasons: as the most expensive sporting event ever and by far the deadliest,” Worden added.
CNN Arabic has reached out to the Qatari government for comment, with no response as of this writing.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino on Friday praised volunteers and organizers for organizing ‘the best World Cup ever’, but activists and critics say Infantino’s comment ignores the sacrifices of migrant workers who are entitled to compensation for unpaid wages, injuries and deaths.
Another human rights organization, Equidem, wrote to Infantino asking him to guarantee migrant workers their due compensation and to support the establishment of an independent center for migrant workers in Qatar.
Qatar’s government says more than 30,000 foreign workers have been brought in to build stadiums for the World Cup, to lift 7 new stadiums out of the desert for the 2022 World Cup, and the Gulf state has expanded its airport and built new hotels, railways and highways, and all this was built by migrant workers, who, according to the Amnesty International organization, make up 90% of the workforce of almost 3 million people in the country.
