VOA慢速英语--人权组织称:卡塔尔世界杯工程存在拖欠薪资问题

Rights Group Says Migrant Workers Unpaid¹, Trapped in Qatar

The human rights group Amnesty International says thousands of migrant workers in Qatar are not getting paid by their employers. The workers also are being forced to live in bad conditions.

Qatar promised to change its labor² laws for migrants in 2018. However, Amnesty said the Qatari government had failed to improve its policies on unpaid wages.

An employment system called kafala continues to give Qatari companies great power over migrant employees. It is a system of sponsorship. The system permits companies to hold a migrant’s passport. It also prevents a migrant from changing jobs. An estimated 2 million migrants work in Qatar under the kafala system.

Qatar will host the FIFA World Cup in 2022, and is building stadiums, roads and other infrastructure³ with kafala labor.

The human rights group is calling on the international community to put more pressure on Qatar to improve the conditions for its migrant workers.

Great on paper

Qatar agreed to establish committees to resolve labor disputes. It also said it would set up special insurance to help workers who want to take legal action against their employers.

The problem is that some employers simply do not pay the migrants. They also might refuse to return their passports leaving them trapped in the country.

“The reality…is once they do not get their wages…they are stuck in a long legal battle,” said Amnesty's May Romanos. "And even then, the money is not guaranteed at the end.” She added that the migrants end up homeless and jobless, living in terrible conditions.

In 2018, Amnesty followed the cases of more than 2,000 migrant workers working for three employers in the building and cleaning businesses. The three employers were Hamton International, Hamad bin⁴ Khaled bin Hamad (HKH) and United Cleaning. The companies stopped paying wages when they claimed they had financial problems. Then, they stopped operating. Most workers did not receive any money for the work they had done and returned to their home countries with nothing.

Planned reforms

The Qatari government said it has made meaningful reforms. It also claims it has intervened to help migrants settle problems with their employers. Amnesty says there is an urgent need for more judges to speed up the committee hearings and to make the special insurance more widely available.

Romanos is concerned that worldwide attention will decrease after the 2022 World Cup. “If things are not changing within the…next year or so, I think there will not be any more opportunity to change the system,” she said.

Building projects for the 2022 World Cup are now nearly complete. Amnesty expects the mostly male migrant workers could be replaced with female workers to service tourism. It fears those women migrants may be treated worse than the men.

I’m Susan Shand.

Words in This Story

wage –n. money paid to workers based on the number of hours they work

sponsorship – n. an arrangement in which a sponsor agrees to give money to someone or something

infrastructure – n. the basic equipment and structures (such as roads and bridges) that are needed for a country, region, or organization to function properly

insurance –n. an agreement in which a person makes regular payments in exchange for a guarantee of payment if they suffer a loss

opportunity – n. an amount of time or a situation in which something can be done

1 unpaid   

adj.未付款的，无报酬的

参考例句：

• Doctors work excessive unpaid overtime.医生过度加班却无报酬。
• He's doing a month's unpaid work experience with an engineering firm.他正在一家工程公司无偿工作一个月以获得工作经验。

2 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

3 infrastructure   

n.下部构造，下部组织，基础结构，基础设施

参考例句：

• We should step up the development of infrastructure for research.加强科学基础设施建设。
• We should strengthen cultural infrastructure and boost various types of popular culture.加强文化基础设施建设，发展各类群众文化。

4 bin   

n.箱柜；vt.放入箱内；[计算机] DOS文件名:二进制目标文件

参考例句：

• He emptied several bags of rice into a bin.他把几袋米倒进大箱里。
• He threw the empty bottles in the bin.他把空瓶子扔进垃圾箱。