Workers at Lalibela Cleaning & Services have said that they have been unable to file a labor complaint of unpaid wages through the dispute resolution mechanism because their employer did not issue their Qatari ID Cards. Such workers will also not be able to benefit from Qatar’s Wage Support and Insurance Fund, which can only pay workers’ wages if the employer cannot pay after a court ruling against the company. Lalibela workers also said that not having the ID cards limited their freedom of movement as they fear being arrested. Qatar recently made significant changes to its kafala system, but it did not abolish the system, leaving workers still tied to employers, who retain control over the workers’ legal status. Employers are required to issue and renew work and residency permits and issue ID cards but can cancel a worker’s residency at any time. “Qatari authorities repeatedly say that wage-related abuses should be reported to them immediately so they can investigate and expedite compensation for workers facing these painful wage abuses,” Javaid said. “But the sheer number of these unpaid wage cases show that Qatar has yet to fully protect and compensate workers for wage abuses,” Javaid said. Imperial Trading and Construction Company (ITCC) Despite the delays in wage payments by the ITCC, and the delay by the government in investigating the company, the employees continue to report to work. One worker told Human Rights Watch that at least 40 workers have submitted individual complaints to the labor dispute committee since June but have yet to be called in for a hearing. Driven to desperation, the workers have staged multiple protests demanding their owed wages. “The police and the CID [Criminal Evidence and Information Department] came to the protests to try to scare us to end the strike,” said one ITCC employee. “They say that if we put photos or videos of the protests on social media we will be jailed.” Migrant workers are banned under Qatari law from joining unions and participating in strikes. On October 27, Qatar’s Government Communications Office told Human Rights Watch that the Labor Ministry has placed ITCC on its list of banned companies and opened legal proceedings. These legal proceedings are separate from those submitted to the labor court directly by the workers. In a case brought forward by the police, in a July 29 verdict, a copy of which Human Rights Watch has obtained, the Court of First Instance ruled against ITCC in absentia for failing to pay 285 employees their due wages, fining it 500,000 Qatari riyals (about US$137,000). A second verdict by the same court on October 13 ruled against ITCC in absentia for failing to pay 316 workers their due wages for January, February, and March, and fined it 2,000 Qatari riyals (about $550) for each employee whose wages were not paid. The ruling did not state whether the fine would be used to pay the workers’ wages.