“While it may be too late to erase the suffering of past abuses, FIFA and
Qatar can and should act to provide redress and prevent further abuses
from taking place. Providing compensation to workers who gave so much to
make the tournament happen, and taking steps to make sure such abuses
never happen again, could represent a major turning point in FIFA’s
commitment to respect human rights,” Agnès Callamard further said.
As expressed in the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights,
and recognized by its own policies, FIFA has a responsibility to remedy
human rights abuses it has contributed to. This responsibility should cover
not only workers building football-specific facilities such as stadiums and
training sites, FIFA-accredited hotels and the broadcast center, but also the
services required to operate these facilities. It should also cover those
workers involved in building and servicing the transport, accommodation
and other infrastructure required to host more than a million visitors
expected to travel to Qatar to watch the tournament, said Amnesty
International.
Equally, Qatar is also obliged to ensure remedy for every abuse on its
territory, whether linked to the World Cup or not. While there has been some
progress through both the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy’s
initiatives and Qatar’s welcome program of labor reforms, their respective
limited scope and weak enforcement have meant that serious human rights
abuses persist and migrant workers have had limited access to remedy.
Ultimately, abuses suffered by workers over the past decade on all projects
needed for this World Cup, have largely remained unaddressed.
“For years, the suffering of those who made this World Cup possible has
been brushed under the carpet. It is about time FIFA and Qatar came
together to work on a comprehensive remediation programme that puts