Workers Who Built Qatar's World Cup HQ Haven't Been Paid In A Year

The situation for migrant workers in Qatar, which one international organization believes will result in more deaths than 9/11, doesn't appear to be getting any better. The Guardian, which has been all over this story, has a new report on migrant workers who have not received payment in over a year and have been living in roach-infested flophouses.

This latest bit of mistreatment is especially offensive, as this particular group of unpaid workers built the tower where Qatar's Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy—the group that is overseeing the 2022 World Cup—is making its home.

Officials in Qatar's Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy have been using offices on the 38th and 39th floors of Doha's landmark Al Bidda skyscraper – known as the Tower of Football – which were fitted out by men from Nepal, Sri Lanka and India who say they have not been paid for up to 13 months' work.

The project, a Guardian investigation shows, was directly commissioned by the Qatar government and the workers' plight is set to raise fresh doubts over the autocratic emirate's commitment to labour rights as construction starts this year on five new stadiums for the World Cup.

The offices, which cost £2.5m to fit out, feature expensive etched glass, handmade Italian furniture and even a heated executive toilet, project sources said. Yet some of the workers have not been paid, despite complaining to the Qatari authorities months ago and being owed wages as modest as £6 a day.

We've met the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy before. They were the cool guys who had a mercenary flack send us a haughty, weak-ass letter assuring us that things weren't that bad for the migrant workers and that all of this stuff about thousands of exploited workers dying was being blown way out of proportion.

More from the Guardian:

The migrants are squeezed seven to a room, sleeping on thin, dirty mattresses on the floor and on bunk beds, in breach of Qatar's own labour standards. They live in constant fear of imprisonment because they have been left without paperwork after the contractor on the project, Lee Trading and Contracting, collapsed. They say they are now being exploited on wages as low as 50p an hour.

It's time to find a new host for the 2022 World Cup.

[ The Guardian]