Human rights groups urged more sponsors of the World Cup in Qatar on Tuesday to support calls for compensation for migrant workers and their families over alleged abuses.
Four of the 14 FIFA corporate partners and World Cup sponsors — AB InBev, Adidas, Coca-Cola and McDonald’s — have stated their support for financial compensation, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and FairSquare said in a joint statement.
The other 10 have not publicly offered support or responded to requests to discuss “tournament-related abuses”, the rights groups said.
“Brands buy rights to sponsor the World Cup because they want to be associated with joy, fair competition and spectacular human achievement on the playing field — not rampant wage theft and the deaths of workers who made the World Cup possible,” HRW’s director of global initiatives, Minky Worden, said in the statement.
Visa, Hyundai-Kia, Qatar Energy, Qatar Airways, Vivo, Hisense, Mengniu, Crypto, Wanda and Byju’s are the partners and sponsors that have not commented on the compensation campaign.
Qatar has faced accusations of under-reporting deaths and injuries among migrant workers and of not doing enough to alleviate harsh conditions. Unpaid wages have also been frequently raised.
The Qatari government has highlighted major reforms it has introduced, including a minimum wage, dismantling a scheme that gave employers stringent controls over labourers, and imposing stricter rules on working in the summer heat.
Hassan al-Thawadi, secretary general of Qatar’s World Cup organising committee, said on Monday Qatar had committed to pay $28 million to migrant workers who had given illegal fees to agents in their home country to work in Qatar.
Source: eNCA
In other news – Sad news about Senzo Meyiwa’s tombstone
The tombstone of the late Mzansi soccer star Senzo Meyiwa is still not restored after the South African Football Association (Safa) in KZN promised to do it in three months.
The association told the publication in May that it’ll restore the tombstone in three months’ time. Learn more
