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By James M Dorsey
It’s an excellent time, nearly 12 years after the world soccer physique, FIFA, awarded Qatar the 2022 World Cup internet hosting rights and 5 months earlier than the match, to judge the marketing campaign to reform the nation’s erstwhile onerous labour system and accommodate followers whose life violate restrictive legal guidelines and/or go in opposition to deeply rooted cultural attitudes.
In the end the stability sheet reveals a combined bag even when one takes under consideration that Qatari autocracy has confirmed to be extra responsive and versatile in responding to stress by human rights and labour teams than its Gulf brothers within the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.
On the plus aspect, the preliminary wave of condemnation of the nation’s repressive kafala labour system that put workers on the mercy of their employers persuaded Qatar to change into the primary Gulf state, if not the primary Arab state, to interact with its critics.
Engagement meant giving human rights teams and commerce unions entry to the nation, permitting them to function and maintain information conferences in Qatar, and involving them in drafting reforms and World Cup-related mannequin labour contracts. This was unprecedented in a area the place native activists are behind bars or worse and international critics don’t even make it onto an inbound flight.
The reforms had been imperfect and never far-reaching sufficient, even when Qatar launched important enhancements within the circumstances for unskilled and semi-skilled employees.
Moreover, on the plus aspect, the internet hosting rights sparked restricted however nonetheless taboo-breaking discussions that touched on delicate topics equivalent to LGBT rights and the granting of citizenship to non-nationals.
Qataris overtly questioned the granting of citizenship to international athletes so that they might be included within the Qatar nationwide workforce for the 2016 Olympics slightly than medical personnel and different professionals who had contributed to nationwide welfare and growth.
Internet hosting the World Cup has additional pressured Qatar, albeit in a restricted vogue, to come back to grips with points like LGBT rights that don’t merely violate the nation’s legal guidelines however go in opposition to its social grain to provide an inclusive match.
In some methods, which will have been tougher than reforming the labour regime if one considers the distinction between standing up for democratic freedoms which will have broad public assist and the popularity of LGBT rights. In distinction to democratic rights, opposition to LGBT rights is deeply engrained in Qatar and different Muslim societies. It could possible be socially rejected, even when they had been enshrined in legislation.
The distinction implies that the defence of LGBT and different socially controversial rights forces activists and human and LGBT rights teams to rethink their methods and undertake different, extra long-term approaches.
It additionally implies that they must embrace much less Western-centric attitudes often prevalent within the marketing campaign to reform Qatar’s labour system. These attitudes had been evident in debates that had been additionally typically skewed by bias, prejudice, bigotry, and bitter grapes.
Furthermore, the criticism typically failed to think about the context. Consequently, reaching outcomes and pushing for reform was, to a level, undermined by what seemed to be a ganging up on Qatar and a singling out of the Gulf state.
Labour is an instance. Human rights teams and commerce unions handled onerous labour circumstances in Qatar, even when the World Cup turned it into a main goal, as uniquely Qatari slightly than a worldwide downside that manifests itself in different components of the world equivalent to Southeast Asia and even Western democracies like Britain. Latest reporting by The Guardian confirmed that expatriate medical and caregiver personnel face related curbing of rights and abuse in Britain.
By the identical token, Qatar was taken to process for being sluggish in implementing its reforms and guaranteeing that they had been utilized not solely to World Cup initiatives however nationwide.
The very fact is that lagging enforcement of insurance policies and authorized adjustments is an issue throughout the broad spectrum of Qatari insurance policies and reform efforts, together with the Gulf state’s high-profile, fast-paced, mediation-driven international coverage. Qatar’s dealing with of unlawful recruitment charges paid by employees is a working example.
The Supreme Committee for Supply & Legacy, the Qatari organizer of the World Cup, has obliged firms it contracts to repay the charges with out employees having to supply proof of cost. Firms have to this point pledged to repay roughly USD$28.5 million to some 49,000 employees, $22 million of which have already been paid out.
It’s a step the federal government may apply nationally with relative ease to display sincerity and, extra basically, counter the criticism.
Equally, in response to complaints raised by human rights teams and others, the federal government may additionally provide to compensate households of employees who die on building websites. Once more, none of those measures would dent Qatari budgets however would earn the Gulf state immeasurable goodwill.
The consequence of singling out Qatar with out placing it in a broader context was that preliminary Qatari willingness to work with its critics weakened as attitudes hardened. More and more self-confident, Qatar engaged much less with its critics and responded to criticism extra aggressively.
Qatar has completed itself no favours in its dealings with the media relating to its mediocre responses to inquiries and efforts to inhibit impartial reporting and suppress what Qatari officers would take into account detrimental tales.
Qatar’s cost-benefit evaluation is commonly skewed as its repressive and defensive actions trigger better reputational harm than the incidents it tries to suppress. It stays an open query whether or not Qatar is pushed by dangerous religion, sick will, and lack of political will or ineptitude that will get it caught in a rout.
The underside line of all of this isn’t whether or not criticism of Qatar is justified. It largely is. The query for human rights teams and different activists is what’s, given the character of the problems and the truth that the window on leverage over Qatar is closing, what classes could be discovered from the expertise of the final decade and what’s the greatest technique and strategy going ahead.
There could also be no quick solutions, however what is clear is that methods and approaches goal to encourage additional reforms, and post-World Cup reform must be up to date and tailored. (IPA Service)
By association with the Arabian Put up
The put up World Cup Steadiness Sheet Presents A Combined Bag For Qatar first appeared on IPA Newspack.
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