Tek Bahadur Gurung, Nepal’s labour minister, ripped the government of Qatar and FIFA for refusing to allow migrant Nepalese workers to return home after a devastating earthquake killed more than 8,000 people there in April. Thousands of people are still missing.
Over 400,000 Nepalese workers are in Qatar, many of them working on infrastructure for the 2022 World Cup.
This is Tek Bahadur Gurung speaking in an interview with the Guardian: “After the earthquake of 25 April, we requested all companies in Qatar to give their Nepalese workers special leave and pay for their air fare home.
While workers in some sectors of the economy have been given this, those on World Cup construction sites are not being allowed to leave because of the pressure to complete projects on time. “Nothing will change for migrant workers until FIFA and its rich sponsors insist on it. … (but) we are a small, poor country and these powerful organizations are not interested in listening to us.” Many foreign workers in Qatar are forced to adhere to a system of labor rules called kafala, where workers are tied to a single employer, not allowed to move freely, and may be expected to hand over their passports to their bosses.
