About this site

This website focuses on issues regarding social protection in Asia and the activities done by the Network on Social Protection Rights (INSP!R) and its members. It is under the editorial oversight from the Asia Steering Committee, composed out of members from India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Cambodia, Indonesia and Philippines. It is meant to foster dialogue and share experiences.
The articles describe challenges and achievements to improve the right to social protection to workers in the region, with a specific focus to gender, youth and informal workers.

28 November 2014

Nepali migrant workers stage protest in Qatar

Finally, the protest regarding migrant workers is starting in Qatar. Previously, international attention of trade unions, NGO and media had started rising, but little public protesting happened in Qatar itself, where it is so hard to organize and forbidden to unionize for migrant workers. Article in eKantipur, shared by GEFONT:

About 600 Nepali migrant workers in Qatar have taken to the streets, demanding that their employer should pay them not less than the minimum salary set by the government for Nepalis working in Qatar.

The migrants, working at Qatar Freelance Trading and Contracting and Qatar Middle East Company, complained that they had been paid only QR600 as against the minimum monthly salary of QR900 set by the Nepal government.

They have stopped working in protest since Saturday, demanded that they be provided the set salary or sent back home with all facilities and perks due to. About 100 other foreign migrants have also joined in the protest.   

Labour attaché at the Nepali embassy in Qatar, Lilanath Dahal, who visited the workers’ quarters recently to inquire about their problems, said the workers had complained about them being denied the previously agreed salary. Qatari officials had also visited the quarters and enquired about the conditions.

Dahal said the employers lamented their inability to increase salary of the protesting workers. “We cannot increase salary of the workers at this time. Rather we are ready to repatriate them,” Dahal quoted managers of the companies as saying. (Original article in eKantipur here)

Sign the Watchdog petition addressed to FIFA here to speak out against the atrocious labor abuses and needless deaths of migrant workers in Qatar, and call on the World Cup organizers there to improve conditions and compensate the victims' families as they move the Cup location elsewhere!

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