Since 2010, thousands of migrant workers have died suddenly and unexpectedly in Qatar, despite undergoing medical tests before travelling to the country. But even though there is evidence of links between premature deaths and unsafe working conditions, the Qatari authorities have failed to investigate the underlying causes of these deaths. As a result, bereaved families are left not knowing what happened to their loved ones and are denied the possibility of compensation from the employers or the Qatari authorities. 3. Forced labour Some migrant workers are made to work extremely long hours and are denied rest days, under the threat of having their wages cut. This can amount to forced labour. For example, security guards told Amnesty International that they regularly have to work 12 hours a day, seven days a week without a single day off for months and even years on end. If they take a weekly day off, they risk their employer deducting their wages by up to six days’ pay. THE PROMISE OF REFORM: SHORTCUTS TAKEN ON THE ROAD TO QATAR 2022 Under persistent pressure, Qatar and its World Cup organizing bodies did gradually go some way to reforming the kafala system and better protecting migrant workers. In 2017, the government started to introduce promising legal reforms to improve the working and living conditions, including introducing a law for domestic workers and legislation to protect workers from heat stress, setting up new labour courts and putting in place initiatives to compensate those who suffered abuses such as wage theft. Importantly, migrant workers are now legally allowed to change jobs and leave the country without their employer’s permission. In addition to these reforms made by Qatar, FIFA and the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy (Qatar’s World Cup organizing body) introduced the Workers’ Welfare Standards to raise the standards of working and living conditions for construction workers on FIFA World Cup tournament sites in 2014. In 2020 they jointly published a new Sustainability Strategy aimed at ensuring respect for the human rights of people contributing to the delivery of the World Cup, as well as other human rights and environmental issues. “ Change came on paper but on the ground, it has not changed… It is still appalling.”