Report: Domestic Workers in Qatar Still Face Abuse, Despite Reforms

Migrant laborers work at a construction site at the Aspire Zone in Doha [Naseem Zeitoon/Picture Supplied by Action Images/Reuters]

Qatar’s government has promised to investigate widespread abuse of domestic workers alleged in an Amnesty International report, stating that alleged abuses violate Qatari law and should be dealt with accordingly.

While praising labor reforms introduced by Qatar in recent years, Amnesty International’s Steve Cockburn said “positive reforms have too often been undermined by weak implementation and an unwillingness to hold abusive employers to account.”

Amnesty’s report, based on interviews with more than 100 foreign women working in the emirate, found that domestic workers are being forced to work 14+ hours a day, seven days a week, and experiencing violence and sexual abuse, and that new reforms promising to protect them have not been enforced. Many of those interviewed by the human rights organization complained that they were effectively trapped in an environment they were desperate to escape.

One woman says she worked for two years without a single day off, and ended up being paid for just two months. When she asked to leave, her employer demanded she pay them $1,375 first, and then later accused her of theft.

She was still stuck, waiting for her theft trial to conclude when Amnesty interviewed her in mid-2019.

The Kafala System

About 20% of the world’s domestic workers live in the Arab states, and the region is home to the largest number of migrant women domestic workers – around 1.6 million.

About 175,000 women from Asia and Africa work in Qatar, many of whom Amnesty says are subject to “a system which continues to allow employers to treat domestic workers not as human beings but as possessions.”

Most arrived under the controversial “kafala” system, a sponsorship system widespread across the Gulf that leaves workers exposed to abuse and exploitation. It also means workers can only seek justice through civil courts, and often only to collect unpaid wages — not to report the abuse many suffer, says the International Labor Organization (ILO).

The system legally ties workers’ residence and work visas to their employers — meaning changing jobs or leaving the country is impossible without their bosses’ permission. The “kafala” system was dismantled in Qatar in September 2020 (legally, at least), but Amnesty reports that in practice, not much has changed.

And workers are still required to give their employers 72 hours notice before they can leave, which rights groups, including Human Rights Watch, say is “problematic” because it suggests to employers that they have the right to say no. At least one worker interviewed by Amnesty said her boss “lost” her passport when she indicated she might want to go home.

Passports Taken, Trapped With Nowhere to Go

Due to the nature of their work, most of Qatar’s domestic workers live with their employers, exposing them to abuse and severe limits on their liberty. For many, choosing to leave — which would be financially devastating — is near impossible.

Virtually all those interviewed by Amnesty said their employers had actually confiscated their passports — effectively trapping them in a cycle of forced labor and abuse. “So then when the woman [decides], ‘OK, I can't take it anymore,' then where can she go? She has nowhere to go," says May Romanos, Amnesty researcher for the Gulf.

Even if they manage to escape their employers’ residences, many have nowhere to go. Announced state-run shelters are not yet in operation, says Romanos. Though the Philippine embassy has shelters available, “none of the other embassies are able to look after the women or protect them when they face abuse and run away.”

‘No food, no salary ... Baba would touch me, Madam would spit at me’

Forty of the more than 100 women Amnesty interviewed say they have experienced abuse in some form — physical, verbal or sexual.

Five women told Amnesty they were raped or assaulted — often by male employers or employers’ relatives. One 26-year-old from the Philippines said she was forced to sleep on the floor and barely given food during her tenure with one family. At one point, her male employer began to molest her on a frequent basis, entering her room to grope and force himself on her at night.

With her passport confiscated and enforcement of legal protections effectively absent, she was trapped.

Work Without Pay

Qatar passed a new Domestic Workers Law in 2017 that guaranteed domestic workers at least one day off and a daily working cap of 10 hours. However, it is still much weaker than labor laws for other workers, says Human Rights Watch, and domestic workers are still not guaranteed the same rights to pay, overtime, time off and sick leave as other workers in the emirate.

And even that law is not being properly enforced, says Amnesty. Its interviewees say they were working an average 16 hours per day, seven days a week, despite the reforms. This reflects a pattern of noncompliance that is seen across the Gulf, says the ILO, mostly because without proper enforcement, there is no real incentive for employers to follow the rule of law.

In the most extreme cases, women are working 18-hour days. The only time many can even leave the house is with their employers — most of the time this is because parents want workers to watch their children. “I am not allowed to open the curtains because they do not want me to see anyone,” said one woman, Cheryl. “I am not allowed to go outside unless I am with them.”

And despite the new legislation, more than half of the women Amnesty interviewed said they were not paid on time — or weren’t paid at all. (The law doesn’t actually specify how to make sure workers are paid.)

One woman, Mariam, told Amnesty her health was deteriorating from overwork. She arrived believing she would only be doing domestic work, but soon learned she would also have to take care of a baby: “I asked for 30 minutes sleep in the daytime, but the 20-year-old daughter wouldn’t let me. If I go to rest she would pour cold water in my face, pull my hair,” she recalled.

“She said if I sleep she’ll pour hot water in my face.”

Trapped With Nowhere to Go

Despite reforms, says Romanos, “We are still hearing the same stories of abuse and exploitation taking place. And I think for us, this is an alarm that more needs to be done for these reforms to bring the changes we want to see to protect the domestic workers.”

“Most of them are mothers. They have kids back home ... and they have parents relying on them. They have families, they have dependents,” says Romanos. “They came here to work ... to feed their children, to send them to schools.”

“And, they will tell you: ‘So that my kids don't have to go through what I'm going now.'”

Qatar has offered to cooperate with the human rights group to investigate the violations. Amnesty’s Cockburn urged the Qatari authorities not to “drop the ball” on enforcing their labor reforms, and warned that “Qatar needs to do much more to ensure legislation has a tangible impact on people’s lives.”

Produced by Kareem Yasin and Hangda Zhang

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by AJ+ (@ajplus)

---

You might also enjoy