Less than 20 miles from the heart of Qatar’s capital, Doha, this is where many of the thousands of migrant workers who built that gleaming city come home to sleep at night.
Qatar, the richest country per capita on the planet, is divided into two worlds. One is a picture of this Persian Gulf monarchy’s ambitions — a skyline of majestic new high-rises, sprawling universities and elegant museums; the fast-developing city on the sea that is set to host soccer’s 2022 World Cup.
The other reality is here, among the spare bunk beds and bedbugs of Qatar’s migrant workforce. This is where the movers and builders of Qatar’s magic live, the migrant workers say. And it’s a world almost entirely devoid of Qataris.
“What Qatari is going to talk to us?” said a 38-year-old Pakistani who drives other migrant workers to and from construction sites. “The foremen don’t talk to us. Why would a Qatari?”
In the 14 years that the man has lived in the gas-rich peninsula, he has never once interacted with a Qatari. He has never visited any of the luxury hotels or shopping malls that migrant labor built, nor has he walked the seaside corniche, or taken in a day at the museums that are helping to make this country famous.
Qatar has the highest ratio of migrants to citizens in the world, with its 250,000 nationals composing only about 12 percent of the population. The vast majority of Qatar’s workforce came here from South Asia, often paying hundreds or thousands of dollars to secure a job through recruitment agencies at home, laborers and rights groups say.
But once they get here, workers said the companies they work for confiscate their passports; threaten them with fines and salary reductions for equipment damage or sick days; and send them to work 12- to 15-hour days in searing sunlight and temperatures that can top 105 degrees. In interviews, dozens of laborers — all of whom complained of abusive, slavelike working conditions and asked not to be named for fear of being fired — said they sleep packed 10 to a room in bleak labor camps. The workers said their average earnings are less than $4,000 a year.
Their daily lives mark a stark contrast to that of the average Qatari, who receives free health care, education and electricity, as well as guaranteed access to high-paying jobs in the public sector, subsidized fuel, interest-free housing loans and stipends for education abroad.
Political analysts and some officials have said the international spotlight brought on by Qatar’s successful bid for the World Cup marks a golden opportunity for this tiny monarchy to get its house in order.
Nasser al-Khater, a spokesman for the Qatar 2022 Supreme Committee, called the country’s chance to host the international soccer tournament a potential “catalyst for change in Qatar and in the region.”
