Not many people can deny the fact
that World Cup games come to our mind when we think of the most celebrated
event of worldwide society. Quadrennially, the host country put their full of
efforts on preparing for the event, which includes reinforcing social
infrastructure such as transportation, increasing awareness, and most
crucially, constructing fabulous and magnificent stadiums for the matches.
Millions of people from all around the world who cheer for victory of their own
national team crowd to the host nation, consuming countless of resources and
commodities, by which the host can take advantage of substantial amount of
economic benefits. The nation recently elected as the host country for 2022
World Cup Games, Qatar, also looks for these merits. However, the way they preparing
is highly problematic; irrefutably unethical and irrational actions are being
taking in the middle of Arabian Gulf.
According to Amnesty International,
approximately 1.35 million migrant workers are laboring in Qatar in 2013. Most
of them are from Central Asia, especially Nepal, seeking an economic prosperity
and an escape from poverty. Qatar, on the other hand, is currently recruiting
more and more migrant workers at a remarkable rate, in order to support its
construction boom, due to the dramatic increment of population and the World
Cup. A number of companies in Qatar, however, are being linked to severe worker
abuse, abusing migrants coming to Qatar. To be more specific, 90% of passports
of these workers are held by their employers, and 40% of them sometimes, rarely
or never received their salary on time. In spite of these mistreats, the workers
are being forced to labor for 20 hours a day, without being provided a
government health card, which is essential to access public hospitals. The
abuse mentioned above is not limited to domestic Qatari companies, but also
includes celebrated global companies, intent on maximizing their profits.
Nevertheless, it seems that this current issue would not be solved in the close
future. 94% of the total workforce in the country is made up by migrant
workers, which hinders the government of Qatar from imposing sanctions on these
companies.
The current situation held in Qatar
is undeniably regrettable; the attitude of companies ought to be altered. Most
of labor abuse in history came from a similar reason: superiority that
companies speak up for the legitimacy of their exploitation. Another event that
brought up significant disputes on its justification, the 1998 France World Cup,
also can be understood in the same context. Nike, a well-known company that
supplied official match balls for the game, tricolore, exploited Indian child
labor without compensating them in order to minimize production expense. This
obviously became a hot issue just right after the World Cup, which ultimately
led to led to enactment of a resolution by FIFA, prohibiting any further
unethical labor exploitation regarding the World Cup. As time passed,
technology developed, which enabled machines to substitute most of manpower
needed to prepare for the World Cup. However, unfortunately, in spite of these
improvements, still lots of greedy companies are preoccupied with devising ways
to maximize their profits. Companies in Qatar, being blind under economic
prosperity, are demolishing hope and expectations of migrant workers,
disfranchising their fundamental rights as human beings. What we have to
emphasize is that this is happening again and again although several actions
have been taken so far. Therefore, the most essential aspect that should be
changed is the attitude of companies; by initially demanding alternation of
companies, further restrictions and solutions by the worldwide society would
become much more effective and easy.
Next year, the World Cup will be
held in Brazil. Just as it was constantly repeated, millions of people will
gather into Brazil, and Brazilian government will be happy with their bright
economic prospect. However, for an authentic world festival, we should give
more attention to the dark side of its preparation, which is covered under
greediness of companies.
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