Qatar, Bangladesh forge new pact to improve migrant worker rights

A new agreement has been reached between Qatar and Bangladesh aimed at bolstering protections for Bangladeshi migrant workers in the Gulf state, according to Arab News, citing a senior official yesterday.

The development comes after Doha faced intense international scrutiny over its treatment of labourers involved in constructing venues for the 2022 FIFA World Cup.

On Tuesday, the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani, visited Dhaka, where he attended a signing ceremony alongside Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. This included a new memorandum focusing on the rights of Bangladeshi workers in Qatar, a significant number of whom work in the construction sector.

The memorandum includes the formation of a joint working group to address labour rights issues, with leadership on the Bangladeshi side provided by the Ministry of Expatriates Welfare and Overseas Employment.

“A joint working group will be formed for solving labour rights issues,” Khairul Alam, additional secretary at the ministry, said.

“Our Ministry of Expatriates Welfare and Overseas Employment will lead the joint working group from the Bangladeshi side.”

Ahead of the Emir’s visit, on Sunday, Michael Page, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch, said: “It is important for Qatar, Bangladesh, and Nepal to go beyond exchanging diplomatic pleasantries over their longstanding labour ties and seize this moment to publicly commit to concrete, enforceable protections that address the serious abuses that migrant workers in Qatar continue to face.”

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“The Qatari emir should not just meet heads of state, but also visit dialysis centres filled with migrant worker returnees from Qatar and speak with the families of workers who died in Qatar to see the grave consequences of inadequate Qatari labour protections,” he added.

The memorandum has been positively received by groups like the Migration Programme and Youth Initiatives of BRAC, Bangladesh’s largest development organisation.

They estimated that more than 1,300 workers from the country died in Qatar during the construction of the World Cup infrastructure, with many deaths attributed to heart attacks.

“Most of our migrant workers prefer the Middle Eastern countries, and after Saudi Arabia, UAE and Oman, Qatar is the preferred destination for the Bangladeshi migrants. In this context, such a type of MoU on labour employment is helpful for the protection of migrant workers’ rights,” said Shariful Hasan, the programme’s associate director.