In the wake of recent media reports about appalling working conditions in Qatar, where scores of Nepali workers have been reported to have died on construction sites, the government has taken up the issue with Qatari officials and demanded better treatment for workers as guaranteed by international labour laws. 

Officiating Foreign Secretary Ambika Devi Luintel yesterday called Qatari Ambassador Ahmed Jaseem Mohammed Ali Al-Hamer at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and expressed the government’s serious concern about the conditions in which Nepali nationals work in the oil-rich country. 

“She underscored the imperative need to comply with the provisions stated in the employment contracts by the concerned companies recruiting Nepali citizens,” MoFA said of Luintel’s meeting with the Qatari envoy in a statement today.

Separately, Ganesh Dhakal, Charge’ d’affaires of Nepal in Qatar, also took up the matter with Qatari foreign ministry officials and discussed major problems faced by Nepali nationals in the emirate.

“The foreign ministry officials assured him of taking necessary steps to address the problems,” MoFA said. Nepalis account for more than 40 per cent of migrant labourers in Qatar where over 600,000 Nepali workers have been employed, most of them in construction-related works, particularly in building luxury hotels, stadiums and entertainment facilities for the 2022 World Cup.

The Guardian newspaper last week reported that ‘thousands of Nepalis, who make up the single largest group of labourers in Qatar, face exploitation and abuses that amount to modern-day slavery, as defined by the International Labour Organisation. They were even denied basic salary and water at workplace. As many as 276 Nepalis died in Qatar last year, of whom 20 per cent were on building sites. As many as 151 Nepalis have died so far this year, 44 of them between June 4 and August 8.

Nepal last week recalled its ambassador to Qatar Maya Kumari Sharma who got herself embroiled in controversy for describing Qatar as an ‘open jail’ for Nepali workers. 

Officials at the Embassy of Nepal in Doha said the employers have denied air-condition facility to the workers at workplace and their residential quarters, most of them are squalid and overcrowded.

In Kathmandu, Ambassador Al-Hamer told Officiating Foreign Secretary Luintel that authorities concerned in Qatar have taken the issue seriously and assured her that his country ‘will not leave any stone unturned while addressing the concerns of large number of Nepali nationals working in Qatar’.

Meanwhile, the government is considering sending a high-level delegation to Gulf countries to take stock of conditions in which Nepali nationals work there. 

MoFA Deputy Spokesperson Bishnu Gautam told THT that the members of the delegation and the date of their departure are yet to be finalised.

The government also refuted a report by Reuters news agency that Nepali official denied labour abuses in Qatar. In its news report on September 30, the news agency had claimed so while quoting Mohammad Ramadan, identifying him as a legal adviser appointed by the Nepali embassy in Doha. “The person quoted by Reuters does not hold any official capacity; he does not represent Nepali embassy in Doha,” Gautam said.

Published on: 3 October 2013 | The Himalayan Times