QNA
Doha


The International Trade Union Confederation’s claim - repeated in its most recent statement - that “by the time the 2022 World Cup kicks off in seven years’ time, based on new data, more than 7,000 migrant workers could have died in Qatar” is groundless and represents a deliberate distortion of the facts, according to a statement by the Government Communications Office of the State of Qatar.
To date, after more than 14mn hours worked, there have been no fatalities on World Cup project sites - not one, it said.  
It also makes no sense to suggest that all deaths in a population of over a million workers are a result of workplace accidents or conditions, as ITUC appears to claim. To illustrate the point: if ITUC were to apply the same logic to an evaluation of worker fatalities in the run-up to the London Olympic Games, every death of a non-British worker between 2006 and 2012 would have been attributed to the London Olympics.  
Though ITUC’s figures have been thoroughly and painstakingly refuted many times in the past, the trade union confederation, for reasons that are unclear, repeatedly offers them as established fact. There is absolutely no reason to believe that thousands of workers will die on World Cup sites, and repeating this falsehood, all evidence to the contrary, does not make it true.
Equally unclear is why ITUC fails to compare labour conditions in Qatar with conditions in other countries facing similar challenges. Qatar is certainly not the only nation experiencing rapid growth and development and offering employment to a large number of guest workers. The government of the State of Qatar fully intends to meet the highest standards with regard to labour conditions and would welcome comparative data on the progress that has been made.  
In the past five years, workers in Qatar have sent home between $10bn and $14bn in remittances to their families each year. The overwhelming majority of these workers are fairly treated. But the government recognises that a small minority are not, which is why we are reforming our labour laws and practices, and making continuous improvements to both the living and working conditions of Qatar’s guest workers.  
Significant reforms have been made and more are in the pipeline.