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Qatar has made little progress improving migrant workers' rights, despite promises to do so, the rights group Amnesty International has said, reports the BBC.
The working and housing conditions of migrant construction workers have been heavily criticised. Amnesty has been monitoring conditions in the run up the 2022 World Cup but says progress has been limited in some areas, non-existent in others.
Qatar insists major changes will be in place by the end of the year. The report comes as two sponsors of the football tournament, Visa and Coca-Cola, voiced concerns over migrants workers' rights. An estimated 1.5 million migrants work in Qatar, many on the construction boom fuelled by Qatar's successful bid to host the World Cup.
In its report, Amnesty says a promise from Qatar last year to change the system under which workers have to seek permission from their employers to leave the country or change jobs has not been met. A construction boom followed Qatar's successful bid for the World Cup It says the one change to labour laws that has been brought, a wage protection system to ensure workers are properly paid, is being implemented slowly.
One migrant told Amnesty he had not been paid since arriving in Qatar five months ago. "I just want to work and earn some money for my wife and children, but because of my sponsor I can't change jobs," he said. "Qatar is failing migrant workers," said Mustafa Qadri, Amnesty's Gulf migrant rights researcher.
