A comparative study has revealed a massive humanitarian crisis in Qatar as the country prepares for the 2022 World Cup.
Earlier this month, a document leak raised allegations over the Qatari state of bribing FIFA for securing the hosting rights for the World Cup.
While the investigation on the allegations has begun, there’s another huge crisis in the preparations for the World Cup.
A comparative study has shown that the death toll in the preparations for the multi-nation tournament in Qatar has reached to 1200, with many claiming that the numbers could be more than the mentioned figure.
The study reveals the number of lives lost in the preparations of global tournaments, like the Olympics in Beijing (2008), Vancouver (2010) London (2012) and Sochi (2014), and the FIFA World Cup tournaments in South Africa (2010) and Brazil (2014).
Major humanitarian crisis:
It has been revealed that while Sochi’s Winter Olympics registered the death toll of around 60 (highest among other tournaments in the research), the lives lost in Qatar for the preparations of the World Cup are over 26-times higher.
Hans-Christian Gabrielsen, Leader of Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions, made a haunting statement on the crisis.
“If we were to hold a minute of silence for every estimated death of a migrant worker due to the constructions of the Qatar World Cup, the first 44 matches of the tournament would be played in silence,” he said.
“The stories of the workers in Qatar are unfortunately not unique. It is the everyday life of hundreds of thousands of migrant workers around the world.”
The mistreatment of migrant workers includes a late or complete non-payment of wages, lack of freedom to change job or countries and poor quality accommodation, according to Guardian.
The same report (published in December 2014) also revealed that Nepalese migrants died at the rate of one every two days throughout the year.
Humans Rights Watch has reported that the working conditions in Qatar during some months of the summer could result in “potentially fatal heat-related illnesses in the absence of appropriate rest.”
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The recent allegations of corruption revealed that Qatar paid $880m to FIFA to secure the hosting rights for the World Cup. The claim is currently investigated by the Swiss police.
