Qatar’s World Cup Workers

Radio Télévision Suisse | 15min
Postproduction script

00:00:02,897 VO: -This is a brand new 5-star hotel, with swimming pool, spa and several restaurants. The Royal Meridian, will be one of the hotels that welcomes national teams in Qatar. It is perhaps in this room that Shaqiri or Yann Sommer will sleep. Approximate price during the World Cup: 2000 euros per night. Dozens of hotels like this one have been built. 130,000 rooms will be used to accommodate fans and teams. But what the visitors won't see are the living conditions of the employees of these luxury hotels. They are the unseen builders of this World Cup.

0’46 Title – Qatar’s World Cup Workers

00:00:52,920 VO: These workers live away from downtown Doha, out of sight of visitors. They are found in this type of industrial zone. Everyone is under surveillance… We enter thanks to the complicity of a security guard. Most of them are at work at this time. 16 people are sharing this apartment. They come from Bangladesh, Nepal and Kenya.

00:01:22,608 Issa: -This is my room, there's eight of us in here. This is my bed, I sleep here.

00:01:31,830 VO: -Other people can also be found in every corner of the house. Everywhere, even in the suitcases, cockroaches and bedbugs.

00:01:41,984 Issa: -There are too many of us here. And the running water is sometimes missing. I feel like I'm in prison.

00:01:52,815 VO: -Issa is a security guard. He works in the hotel which will host the team from Saudi Arabia. He earns 260 euros per month and sends almost everything to his family in Africa.

00:02:05,591 Issa: -This is my wife, I miss her very much. I miss my son too.

00:02:12,617 VO: -Issa, 24 years old, left Kenya when his son was born. He has not seen him since. In the next room, we meet Vincent. He too is employed in a luxury hotel, as a cleaner. To come to Qatar, he had to go into debt. He can't quit his job until he paid it off.

00:02:35,021 Vincent: -Before you can come here, you have to go through an agent who will put you in touch with a Qatari employer. I had to pay 1,000 euros. Your first wages are used to pay your debts. Your family depends on you and you still have to survive on that. It's a sacrifice.

00:03:05,772 VO: -Bakary broke his leg at work. With his 270 euros per month, he would have to work 10 months to pay for a night in the hotel where he works, as a gardener. He is worried about his salary.

00:03:20,090 Bakary: -I was told I would be paid.

00:03:23,003 Reporter: -Are you afraid you won't be?

Bakary: -I'm not sure. I have to stay here for a month without working. I have a colleague who was sick and didn't get paid.

00:03:42,466 VO: -None of them thought they would ever one day be stuck here. There are over two million of them, second-class citizens. Only a few decades ago there was nothing here but desert. Thanks to its gas reserves, Doha is now displaying its architectural extravagances. No one pays taxes here. Nothing is impossible in Qatar, even if it means bordering on the absurd. Like this street, air-conditioned day and night. A popular place for Qataris who like to show themselves there in the evening and show off their wealth. To get everything ready for the World Cup, thousands of workers are still working everywhere. It doesn't matter if the temperature over 41 degrees in the shade. But rather than talking about the workers, the authorities present the brand new stadiums. This man is the manager of Stade 974. Switzerland for instance will play Serbia and Brazil here. A fully deconstructible stadium, it is made from recycled shipping containers. The man in charge doesn't have time for questions. We try our luck.

00:05:08,018 Reporter: -Are you proud of this stadium?

00:05:10,190 Mohamed Al Atwaan: -Yes I am so proud to have been able to contribute to this project. It will be a great moment when we dismantle it after the World Cup.

00:05:20,398 VO: -We then try a few annoying questions about the controversy around the deaths on the building sites.

00:05:27,944 Mohamed: -We have high standards in terms of safety and health at work. We make sure that they have good working conditions. In this stadium, there has not been a single death so far.

5’33 Mohamed Al Atwaan, Manager, Stadium 974

00:05:45,320 VO: -According to the authorities, the lives of the workers are like a fairy tale. Fatma Al Nuaimi is the spokesperson of the Supreme Committee which manages the organization of the World Cup. She gets annoyed with always having to justify herself about the living conditions of the foreign workforce.

00:06:09,226 Fatma Al Nuaimi: -I don't think it's fair. But many of those who judge have not been in the field. What did they see themselves? Nothing. A lot of them didn't read the reports.

6’11 Fatma Al Nuaimi, Spokesperson, Head committee, Qatar 2022

00:06:27,207 Reporter: -This morning we visited a home. Inside there were 16 people. What do you think?

00:06:36,663 Fatma: -If you really visited a place like that, tell the Ministry of Labour or you can tell us about it and we'll take care of it.

00:06:51,122 VO: -We have approached the Department of Labour on numerous occasions. No one answered us. However, the next day, we are invited to visit Asian City. Behind walls, this camp welcomes 70,000 workers, all men.

00:07:09,531 Security guard: -Who are you?

00:07:10,708 Reporter: -We are Swiss television.

00:07:13,690 VO: We are received by Maïn, the person in charge of the camp, a Tunisian who is very proud to show us the place.

00:07:20,705 Maïn: -This is the clinic.

00:07:23,856 Reporter: -Just for the camp?

00:07:25,881 Maïn: Yes! A clinic just for the workers. This is the second largest mosque in Qatar. For other religions, there is a complex 5km from here.

00:07:40,634 VO: -The two men behind us are members of the government. They follow us all the time, to control the communication, while keeping themselves away from our camera.

00:07:52,615 Maïn: -The majority of the workers are in the service industry.

00:07:56,637 Reporter: -Hotel industry?

7’58 Maïn Jarboui, Project manager, NAAAS Group

00:07:58,302 Maïn: -Hotel industry, security, cleaning, logistics.

00:08:05,583 VO: -We enter one of the of the 55 buildings of the camp.

00:08:09,957 Maïn: -In each corridor, there are 26 identical rooms. 24 square metres, that's the rule. This is the games room, they can play ping pong, snooker... There's even a gym. It's not professional, but acceptable. This is the drinking water system. We can drink it.

00:08:44,984 VO: -Listening to him, this place would be a paradise. But a paradise under high surveillance.

00:08:51,320 Maïn: -Each building is equipped 48 to 50 cameras.

00:08:54,079 Reporter: -And you say that the workers are free to move around?

00:08:58,224 Maïn: -Yes.

Reporter: -But there are walls, cameras..?

00:09:02,672 Maïn: -We don't watch the workers, it's just for the building.

00:09:08,292 Reporter: -We haven't see many workers, can we talk to them?

00:09:15,080 Maïn: -Sure.

00:09:17,210 Reporter: -Alone?

Maïn: -Yes. With the representative of the Ministry of the Exterior.

00:09:31,855 VO: -Maïn finally arranges some interviews. But these ones work in his favour. They are nervous to answer us when their boss is there.

00:09:42,550 Reporter: -Do you like Qatar?

Worker 1: -I love Qatar?

00:09:45,535 Reporter: -Tell me more!

Worker 1: -I love Qatar, sir!

00:09:51,237 Worker 2: -Everything is very good.

00:09:53,024 Reporter: -Did you encounter any difficulties here?

00:09:56,555 Worker 3: -No I'm sorry I don't see any, everything is easy.

00:10:08,405 VO: -Everything is under surveillance in Qatar, including ourselves. Filming the smallest street or the smallest building is complicated. We are checked several times a day. We met a worker who took a risk to show us what Qatar wants to hide. Elias is Kenyan, he is employed in a in a hotel as a security guard. Since his arrival, he has been filming his daily life with his phone. This is the kind of moment he captured. An unconscious worker, at the end of his strength. He also collected images of riots or strikes repressed by the police.

00:11:05,261 Elias: -The working conditions are not good. I work 12 hours a day. If you're not sick, you can work two months without any days off.

00:11:19,734 VO: -In the evening he wants to show us his living conditions. He says he lives in one of the worst camps in Qatar. To get there, you have to drive very far from Doha. The road becomes dangerous. A few days ago here, two workers died in an accident. We then discover the camp of Abu Nakhla. There are thousands of people living in this open-air dump. To get in, we have to be quick and be as discreet as possible. Six worker like him live in this 9 square meters room. The temperature is over 40 degrees. This evening, miraculously, the air conditioning seems to work.

00:12:26,139 Elias: -The electric cable is right next to the bed, you might get electrocuted. Here we cook. Look at the bed, the whole room is rotten.

00:12:50,160 VO: -In a few hours, it's on one of those buses that Elias will reach the luxurious hotel where he works. His case is not rare. Last year the office, of the ILO in Doha registered 24,000 complaints of foreign workers. Housing, wages, intimidation, the abuses continue. But according to its director, Qatar has made undeniable progress in the field of labour law.

00:13:20,520 Max Tuñòn: -In the region, Qatar is the new reference in migrant labour. They set a minimum wage. There is no other country in the Arabian Peninsula that has implemented a minimum wage. And foreign workers can express themselves through committees of workers.

13’27 Max Tuñòn, Head of International Labour Organisation, Qatar

00:13:41,280 VO: -Improvements on paper but on the ground, the situation is slow to change. Elias' daily life has not improved since his arrival 3 years ago.

00:13:54,520 Elias: -They just want you to be a slave for them. They only care about the infrastructure. They don't care about the welfare of the workers.

00:14:09,120 VO: A few days before the kick-off, visitors are already marvelling at the towers and Doha's skyline. Far away from it all, the little hands always are still in the shadows.

14’24 Credits:

David Nicole
Jérôme Galichet
Aline Weber
Gabriela Ackerhmann
Benoît Mayer