(CNN) — Several human rights organizations have renewed sharp criticism of Qatar and FIFA, for their flagrant violations of the human rights file and the exploitation of migrant workers before and during the 2022 World Cup.
The World Cup final, on Sunday, coincides with International Migrants Day and Qatar National Day.
Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Equidem and Migrant Defenders and other groups have called on Qatar and FIFA to do more on behalf of the migrant workers who organized the 2022 World Cup.
Steve Cockburn, Amnesty International’s Head of Economic and Social Affairs, said in a statement to CNN: “However good football is often, the tournament’s cost has been exorbitant for hundreds of thousands of workers who have paid illegal recruitment fees, had their wages stolen or even gone missing.” their lives”.
“These workers and their families deserve compensation, and we still expect FIFA and Qatar to commit to ensuring justice for everyone who made this World Cup possible,” Cockburn added.
Minky Worden, director of global initiatives at Human Rights Watch, agreed with Cockburn on Qatar’s labor reforms, writing in a blog post on Friday: “Even Qatar’s labor reforms were too late, too narrow in scope, or too weakly implemented.” So it doesn’t benefit a lot of workers.”
“Qatar will indeed be remembered for the World Cup, for all the wrong reasons: as the most expensive sporting event ever and by far the deadliest,” Worden added.
CNN Arabic has reached out to the Qatari government for comment, with no response at time of writing.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino on Friday praised volunteers and organizers for staging “the best World Cup ever”, but activists and critics say Infantino’s comment ignores the sacrifices of migrant workers who are entitled to compensation for unpaid wages, injuries and deaths.
Another human rights organization, Equidem, has written to Infantino asking him to ensure migrant workers receive the compensation they are owed and to support the establishment of an independent center for migrant workers in Qatar.
The Qatari government says that more than 30,000 foreign workers were brought in to build the stadiums for the World Cup, to raise 7 new stadiums for the 2022 World Cup from the desert, and the Gulf state expanded its airport and built new hotels, railways and highways, and all this was built by migrant workers, who, according to the organization Amnesty International represents 90% of the workforce of nearly 3 million people in the country.