Gulf | Qatar
Rights of migrant workers' ignored, says ILO official
Gulf countries ignore international conventions on the rights of migrant workers, and their labour laws do not meet the standards for protection of immigrants, an International Labour Organisation official said here yesterday.
- By Barbara Bibbo', Correspondent
- Published: 00:00 June 12, 2007
- Khowla Mattar addressing the regional conference in Doha.
- Image Credit: Handout/Gulf News
Doha: Gulf countries ignore international conventions on the rights of migrant workers, and their labour laws do not meet the standards for protection of immigrants, an International Labour Organisation official said here yesterday.
"Gulf countries still tend to deny the problem of human trafficking and human rights abuses towards migrant workers," said Khowla Mattar, senior specialist on workers' rights at the ILO's regional office for Arab states.
"The culture of rights is weak in our societies; unless we enhance this culture at the regional level, migrant workers will continue to be exploited and their rights abused. Today most of the existing conventions on migrant rights have not been ratified by any Arab country."
Khowla was addressing a regional conference on the situation of migrant workers in the Gulf region, where she criticised Gulf labour laws and in particular the fallout of Qatar's labour law.
"The labour laws in the Gulf are not compatible with the international conventions ... Companies continue to prosper at the expense of poor workers," she said.
There are over 15 million migrants living in the six Gulf Cooperation Council countries, according to an estimate of the Bahrain Human Rights Society. Regardless of their nationality, they are subjected to local sponsors, who have the power to limit migrants' movement and job change.
However, in the cases of low-income uneducated workers, they are exposed to other kinds of abuses also such as physical and verbal harassment, denial of access to consular services and contacts with families, participants in the conference said.
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