Why are we accepting migrant worker deaths in Qatar for the sake of entertainment?

[pieami]

I'm disgusted that we have accepted any deaths for the mere purpose of putting on a sporting event - totally unjustifiable. One death is too many. Why could the event not be held in a country with existing infrastructure?

One reports found "50 workers died and more than 500 others were seriously injured in Qatar in 2021 alone".

I have a feeling there is less of an outrage due to the workers being brown.

[SemperIdem]

How exactly are we accepting it? By agreeing to participate there still? Many didn’t agree with Qatar being the host nation at all and still don’t.

[mycatisannoying]

Dreadful. Human lives being seen as disposable.
Excellent points have been raised about the Ukraine too. ALL the children in the primary school where I work know about the Ukraine. Several of the pupils even host families.
But I could bet my bottom dollar that none of them know about this.

[Fancydancer1934]

@Scautish

Totally agree. Same with Syrian War vs Ukraine war. We’re falling over ourselves to help the poor Ukrainians (which we should) but actively try to prevent Syrian refugees from even getting to our country.

why is this? Happy to help the whites, but not the browns. And then there will be complete denial that there is any racism problem in the UK.

The problems you highlight is not the fault of white people no matter how much you want it to be.

[Discovereads]

Ive looked into this a little more in terms of the FIFA World Cup and fatalities specifically linked construction for those events. Not sure there is a reason to be outraged over Qatar? Or a reason to claim the lack of outrage is due to the workers “being brown”?

[Discovereads]

Here’s the chart for Olympics construction fatalities just out of curiosity.

[GriddleScone]

@Scautish

Totally agree. Same with Syrian War vs Ukraine war. We’re falling over ourselves to help the poor Ukrainians (which we should) but actively try to prevent Syrian refugees from even getting to our country.

why is this? Happy to help the whites, but not the browns. And then there will be complete denial that there is any racism problem in the UK.

Interesting. I never really thought of Syrians as 'brown'.

[BelleMarionette]

Yanbu. The human rights violations of Dubai (modern day slavery and abuse of migrant workers) and Qatar are shocking, and often ignored. The media is incredibly selective and biased in its reporting.

[Discovereads]

@Scautish

Totally agree. Same with Syrian War vs Ukraine war. We’re falling over ourselves to help the poor Ukrainians (which we should) but actively try to prevent Syrian refugees from even getting to our country.

why is this? Happy to help the whites, but not the browns. And then there will be complete denial that there is any racism problem in the UK.

What are you on about? 29,000 Syrian refugees are settled in the U.K.

[MsPincher]

@Discovereads

Ive looked into this a little more in terms of the FIFA World Cup and fatalities specifically linked construction for those events. Not sure there is a reason to be outraged over Qatar? Or a reason to claim the lack of outrage is due to the workers “being brown”?

Thanks. Useful to have some actual information.

[MsPincher]

@BelleMarionette

Yanbu. The human rights violations of Dubai (modern day slavery and abuse of migrant workers) and Qatar are shocking, and often ignored. The media is incredibly selective and biased in its reporting.

i haven’t heard of any of the fatalities @Discovereads has highlighted from world cups and Olympics in places like Russia and Greece. Seems we are ignoring that more than Qatar.

I wonder if the hostility to Qatar is less to do with concern about workers and more to do with plain old racism?

[IncessantNameChanger]

Qatar is partly about the extreme heat workers are facing. Not being able to down tools in the hottest part of the day, regularly going over 40 degrees. Totally avoidable deaths.

No one died in Greece because they was unexpected to carry on working in 40 plus heat I'd bet.

[Taurine]

@MsPincher

i haven’t heard of any of the fatalities @Discovereads has highlighted from world cups and Olympics in places like Russia and Greece. Seems we are ignoring that more than Qatar.

I wonder if the hostility to Qatar is less to do with concern about workers and more to do with plain old racism?

Do you think there might be a distinction between workers dying in tragic accidents, and slaves being worked to death?

[Discovereads]

@Taurine

Do you think there might be a distinction between workers dying in tragic accidents, and slaves being worked to death?

Well the U.K. RIDDOR guidelines counted every workplace death, so whether it was a free worker dying in an accident or a slave worked to death at the workplace- both types were/would have been counted.

The OP started this thread about deaths in Qatar building structures “for the sake of entertainment” and asked why aren’t we outraged. Then implied it’s because the workers are “brown”. The total deaths in Qatar linked to the FIFA World Cup was 3. Furthermore, it appears that quite a few deaths happen globally in construction “for the sake of entertainment”, and that Qatar doesn’t quite have outrage worthy numbers of fatalities.

Now as for the existence of modern slavery in Qatar, well that is also a concern and we can discuss that separately and compare levels of modern slavery between countries as well.

[MsPincher]

@Taurine

Do you think there might be a distinction between workers dying in tragic accidents, and slaves being worked to death?

What are you talking about? What slaves being worked to death?

[MsPincher]

@IncessantNameChanger

Qatar is partly about the extreme heat workers are facing. Not being able to down tools in the hottest part of the day, regularly going over 40 degrees. Totally avoidable deaths.

No one died in Greece because they was unexpected to carry on working in 40 plus heat I'd bet.

Why did the people who died in Greece die?

[Discovereads]

@IncessantNameChanger

Qatar is partly about the extreme heat workers are facing. Not being able to down tools in the hottest part of the day, regularly going over 40 degrees. Totally avoidable deaths.

No one died in Greece because they was unexpected to carry on working in 40 plus heat I'd bet.

I wouldn’t be so sure there were no heat related workplace deaths in Greece.

For the 2004 Olympics, 14 Greek workers died compared to the 3 Qatar workers for the 2022 FIFA World Cup.

Athens average temp in the summer is 38C compared to Doha of 42C.

[Taurine]

@MsPincher

What are you talking about? What slaves being worked to death?

Qatar.

You can quibble semantics re. slavery if you like, but there’s a significant amount of forced labour.

[Discovereads]

@MsPincher

Why did the people who died in Greece die?

Here is an article on the 13 deaths
www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/thirteen-workers-die-as-safety-standards-are-ignored-in-race-to-build-olympic-sites-5354395.html

Couple bits
”According to Mr Philiousis, the reasons for the death toll are three-fold. Contractors are pocketing the health and safety budgets; cheap, unskilled immigrant labourers are being given high-risk heavy machinery to operate; and workers are being forced into excessive overtime to earn early delivery bonuses for their bosses.”

“The majority of workers live in appalling conditions in run-down neighbourhoods and commute to work by bus for up to three hours a day. One overcrowded bus collapsed last year. "There must have been more than 200 of us crammed inside and it broke in half," said Dyonisis Kekai, a worker from Albania.”

“The death in June 2002 of 32-year-old Manea Marinel, 32, from Romania, is an example of the avoidable tragedies that ensued. Unhitching a load from an industrial crane he slipped and was crushed to death. No regulation footwear was given to workers and Mr Marinel was wearing flip-flops.”

[Taurine]

I would not trust the “3 deaths” related statistic for Qatar for a second.

www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/qatar-world-cup-report-reveals-34-stadium-worker-deaths-in-6-years/

[LiesDoNotBecomeUs]

There does not seem to be much we can do about the choice (we had no voice).

However- We could always not watch.
The more of us who don't- the better.

I will find something kinder and better to support for the duration.

[Discovereads]

@Taurine

I would not trust the “3 deaths” related statistic for Qatar for a second.

www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/qatar-world-cup-report-reveals-34-stadium-worker-deaths-in-6-years/

The statistic of 3 was from applying the U.K. RIDDOR standards to all the countries so you could get a fair comparison of deaths that were actually workplace related. The other 31 deaths were not workplace related deaths per U.K. RIDDOR criteria and the link you provided:

“31 of the deaths, including the nine who died last year, are classified as “non-work related”

So, you are saying you don’t trust the U.K. investigation then? If you read the Qatar World Cup report the article you linked to references, you’ll see for example that some of the workers died while off work in car accidents and such like.

[OuttaBabylon]

And the very next few sentences are?

However, in October the Guardian revealed that Qatar rarely carries out post-mortemss when a migrant worker dies, making it difficult to accurately determine the cause of death and establish if it was non-work related...[R]eforms, which were unveiled by the Qatari authorities and the UN’s International Labour Organisationn (ILO), were expected to bring an end to the “kafala” systemm_, under which workers are unable to change jobs without their employer’s permission, a practice some campaigners have described as a modern form of slavery. 

[OuttaBabylon]

@Discovereads your posts are screenshots of data without attribution. Modern slavery and exploitation is rife all over the world and was negotiated to a state of quiet in Qatar. They have already paid out $22 million to workers and being pressured to pay much more in recompense.

www.reuters.com/lifestyle/sports/rights-groups-urge-fifa-earmark-440mln-qatar-migrant-workers-2022-05-19/

Yes, there is racism at play. South Asians and Africans are the migrant labourers. Filipina women are the Nannies and sex workers. Western democracies reliant on ME oil producing countries enable this and keep quiet. They make deals. They watch their friends (Khashoggi for one) die and get irrefutable evidence, but still feign impotence or are. Money is power, and these workers have neither. But you go ahead and continue to refute or minimize their reality.

[Discovereads]

@OuttaBabylon

And the very next few sentences are?

However, in October the Guardian revealed that Qatar rarely carries out post-mortemss when a migrant worker dies, making it difficult to accurately determine the cause of death and establish if it was non-work related...[R]eforms, which were unveiled by the Qatari authorities and the UN’s International Labour Organisationn (ILO), were expected to bring an end to the “kafala” systemm_, under which workers are unable to change jobs without their employer’s permission, a practice some campaigners have described as a modern form of slavery. 

Well yes, there are issues regarding potential under-reporting of deaths for all countries to be fair.

For example, while the U.K. reported 0 deaths during the 2012 Olympic construction, a crane operator died at the Olympic village of sudden cardiac arrest and was found slumped in the stairwell of his crane on the construction site. Not very unlike the “sudden cardiac arrest” that took the life of the Indian worker on the Qatar project found dead in his dorm room. Both ruled not work related.

Similarly, in Japan in 2017 a worker committed suicide after working 200hrs overtime on the 2020 Olympic site- also ruled not work related.

So, yes we can safely assume that the reported figures are not 100% accurate for any country.

[Discovereads]

@OuttaBabylon
Oops sorry. I thought I had pasted the link. The screen shots of the data charts of fatalities are from an article regarding a study done by Rhino Safety
www.shponline.co.uk/construction/paris-2024-past-and-present-olympic-construction-fatalities-indicate-we-still-have-a-long-way-to-go-says-health-and-safety-expert/