Nepal is not just exporting manpower to Qatar now, but also veggies There is something inherently elitist about labels like ‘expat’ and ‘diaspora’. They refer to skilled Nepalis studying, working or living abroad and not to the hundreds of thousands of migrant workers when, in fact, both are just individuals moving out for better opportunities. […]
The Gulf state has taken key steps to address labor issues ahead of the 2022 games, but workers say change has yet to improve their lives
The blockade against Qatar has had a disproportionate economic impact on foreign workers, though increased self-sustainability efforts may provide new employment opportunities.
In a world where populist anti-immigrant narratives dominate, the diverse composition of football teams in the World Cup in Russia did not go unnoticed. Players of foreign origin including former refugees and children or grandchildren of immigrants, especially in the winning French team, stole the show. In Doha, Nepali workers busy building the infrastructure for […]
Despite recent reforms in the country, Doha’s restrictive employment policies continue to challenge migrant mothers and split families On an average day, Faith sends nearly 100 messages on WhatsApp to her children and family back home in Nairobi, Kenya. “It’s cheaper than calling,” she said. “And I’m only working in Qatar to support them.” In […]
Gireesh Kumar, an engineer from the south Indian state of Kerala at a company in Qatar, is quite hopeful as the Qatari government is initiating wide-ranging reforms in its labour system to protect and respect migrant workers’ rights. Gireesh who joined an oil company in Qatar some two years ago was betrayed by the recruitment […]
The effects of the Saudi Arabia-led blockade of Qatar, which has been in place for over 100 days, are beginning to show. Prices of commodities such as rice and vegetables have been rising bit by bit, travel out of and into Qatar is getting more expensive, and jobs are vanishing. Everyone feels the pinch, but […]
When Nathkulasinham Nesemalhar took a flight from Colombo to Muscat in March she believed the boarding pass she clutched in her hand was her golden ticket to a better life after decades of war where she lost everything, including her husband. The 54-year-old widow from Sri Lanka’s former war zone had been promised work as […]
When Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates led the imposition of a political and economic blockade on Qatar last month, there were immediate, far-reaching consequences: Flights were canceled and rerouted, Qatari citizens were expelled from other Arab states of the Persian Gulf, shipping routes were closed and airspace was suddenly off-limits to Qatar’s pilots. […]
“That hell,” was a windowless, dark cell in Brooklyn that Anser Mehmood, a Pakistani truck driver, had inhabited alone for four months in 2001. Mehmood was a father to four children, at the time living in the port city of Bayonne, New Jersey on the Atlantic coastline. Guards surveilled him night and day from a […]