ITUC’s 3 days mission (Nov 29-Dec 1, 2013) to Qatar has been completed. 10 members mission headed by ITUC general secretary Sharan Burrow including Nepal, Denmark, UK, Austria, Australia delegation conducted interaction with workers, visited labor camp and worksites and conducted meeting with word cup supreme committee as well as National Human Right Committee.
Even better think it that the representative of the International Federation of Professional Footballers (FIFPro) has also jointed the team and they are taking the issues seriously.
Just after updating the campaign activities and impact, a meeting was conducted to listen the experiences of forcefully terminated staff of Al Jazeera TV. They explained how difficult is the situation in Qatar even for professional and while color workers, caused by autocratic system.
Then, one of the women social activists, who was kept in detention center for few days sometime ago, explained her experiences in the detention center and its condition. Both stories were very heart breaking and painful. Then we discuss some of the strategy to move forward.
Our conclusion was that Qatar government has committed many times to fulfill the workers right, but nothing has been moved yet. Meeting with NHRC was not encouraging, since it can work independently. In last October they agreed to facilitate the BWI mission and at the final stage pulled back, might be caused by pressure by government. Meeting with World-cup Supreme committee and FIPRO representative was good. Supreme committee listen the things seriously and follow up meeting with FIPRO has been decided for early 2014.
We visited our embassy and talked about the situation as well. Since ILO special mission is in Qatar with the request of Qatar government, they will be visiting different embassy. We have suggested to Nepalese embassy to put the things directly to respect and follow the labor law properly, implement the condition mentioned in demand letter, accelerate the inspection based on requested by embassy or concern authority etc.
Meeting among Nepali
In this connection we conducted an interaction among workers organized by GSG on 29th afternoon. At the end as well another interaction organized by NDF with representative of NDF, GSG, NRN etc. to talk more about the internal communication, working relation and political situation of the Nepal after election.
