Qatar failing on forced labour, says UN agency

(Guardian) Qatar is failing to fully implement an international convention banning the use of forced labour ahead of the 2022 football World Cup, the United Nations' International Labour Organisation (ILO) has warned.

Azfar Khan, the ILO's senior labour migration adviser in the Arab states, told the Guardian that despite pledges to do otherwise Qatar did not properly inspect workplace conditions and there was "no coherence" in the state's policies over the use of migrant labour.

"The onus is on the Qataris if they have ratified the convention to better implement it," he said. "Many of the abuses that take place which can lead to forced labour are still happening."

Qatar became a signatory to the ILO convention on the abolition of forced labour in 2007.

The ILO's criticism follows the Guardian's exposure of 44 deaths among Nepalese workers from 4 June to 8 August and warnings from unions that more than 4,000 migrant workers could die between now and 2022 unless punishing working schedules and squalid living conditions are radically overhauled.

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