Qatar has the best world standards for workers’ welfare

Qatar has become a role model in the workers’ welfare field, as rightly pointed out by HE the Minister of Administrative Development, Labour and Social Affairs, Dr Issa Saad al-Jafali al-Nuaimi, recently. It is a matter of immense pride that Qatar has the best international standards for workers’ welfare as it has updated most of the labour legislation. In fact, Qatar National Vision 2030 has been formulated based on the understanding that human resource development is a main pillar for a comprehensive sustainable development in all its aspects, and one of the main factors for its continuity. The national vision is devoted to the need to establish institutional arrangements to ensure the rights and safety of all labourers in the country, and no effort has been spared in this regard. A large expatriate workforce comes to Qatar annually from all over the world to meet the needs of the country’s ambitious development plans. Belonging to various religions and cultures, they live harmoniously, making Qatar a model for others.By helping in Qatar’s development process, the expatriate workers develop their countries’ economies through money transfers worth billions of dollars, according to World Bank estimates. Qatar has launched a number of policies and legislative amendments to achieve the goal of decent working relationship between the nationals and expatriate workforce. This will establish and promote a balanced and productive relationship between both parties and its reference would be a work contract based on consent and transparency which protects their rights.It is to Qatar’s credit that a number of laws have been promulgated in favour of workers, such as Law No. 1 of 2015 amending certain provisions of the Labour Law, including the introduction of the Wage Protection System, which guarantees the transfer of the employees’ salaries to their accounts in local banks, and Law No. 21 of 2015 which regulates the entry, exit and residency of expatriates, which entered into force at the end of 2016.The promulgation of Law No 13 of 2017 amended certain provisions of the Labour Law, including the establishment of committees for the settlement of labour disputes, with the aim of establishing a speedy and effective remedial mechanism for the settlement of disputes between the workers and employers. The issuance of Domestic Workers Law, and the establishment of National Committee for Combating Human Trafficking which was established to act as national co-ordinator for monitoring, preventing and combating human trafficking are among the other achievements in this regard.On the occasion of the opening in Qatar of an office of the International Labour Organisation, the United Nations agency’s International Labour Standards Department director Corinne Vargha had commended Qatar for its firm commitment to proceed with the implementation of several measures adopted to replace the sponsorship system with a contractual employment relationship and to handle the confiscation of passports and the replacement of contracts, as well as the elimination of restrictions on the ability of workers to change employers through a commendable contractual relationship. Well done, Qatar.