Qatar’s pledge to reform a sponsorship system which has been blamed for the abuse of foreign workers by the end of this year is in doubt after its advisory legislative council delayed a vote on the proposals.
Human rights campaigners criticised the move, the latest blow to efforts to end the kafala system that ties workers to their employers and prevents them from changing jobs or leaving the country without the permission of their sponsor. Many have gone months without pay or had their passports confiscated.
Even modest reforms promised by the Qatari government in the wake of a Guardian investigation and in-depth reports from rights organisations have become mired in holdups.
The official state news agency, QNA, said on Tuesday that the shura council, Doha’s main consultative body, had postponed a vote on the reforms and referred them back to the internal and foreign affairs committee “for further study”.
The legislation is expected to regulate the entry and exit of foreign workers and their residency status in the country, and will be referred to the state’s leadership if approved by the council.
There are more than 1.6 million foreign workers in Qatar, a number that has risen due to a boom in infrastructure spurred by the emirate’s plans to host the World Cup in 2022. In May, Amnesty International accused Qatar of failing migrant workers and “promising little and delivering less” in terms of meaningful reform of its labour laws ahead of the World Cup.
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An investigation by the Guardian last year revealed that Nepalese migrants building the infrastructure to host the World Cup have died at a rate of one every two days in 2014 – despite Qatar’s promises to improve their working conditions.
Mustafa Qadri, Gulf migrants researcher with Amnesty International, said the council’s action, if true, “would represent a significant backward step in the long, slow and up until now, largely unsuccessful bid to improve migrant labour rights protections in Qatar.”
“I hope this report is a misrepresentation, otherwise it would suggest the shura is in denial about the scale of migrant labour abuse,” he told the Guardian.
“It would also fly totally in the face of commitments made by senior Qatari officials like the minister of labour in recent months promising to implement limited reforms aimed at making it easier for migrant workers to change jobs, leave the country, among other things.”
