Over 6,500 migrant workers have died in Qatar since 2010 due to working long hours in the grueling heat, lack of clean water and poor sanitary conditions with some working in conditions that can only amount to modern day slavery.
Many of these workers come from some of the poorest areas of Nepal, Bangladesh, India and Pakistan hoping to scrape enough money to send back home to their families. However, some workers can barely afford to live in the country they work with very little to send back.
Often times workers' visas are cancelled while in country therefor making them affectively hostages. Those who want to change jobs have to seek approval from their current employers and often have to pay exorbitant fees.
The Qatari government has been accused of suppressing the true number of work related deaths in the country and have denied responsibility for the death toll, claiming that the true number of workers deaths' is very small compared to the whole migrant population of 2 million. However, most migrant workers in Qatar are young, fit and healthy.
Qatar has claimed only 37 workers have died directly from work related causes but these numbers are automatically skewed as often times the government includes deaths on the job as "non work related".
Despite the Qatar government's reforms to its labour laws in 2014, not much has changed with many of the problems raised before the reforms still rife throughout Qatar according to a 2021 report by Amnesty International.
