“For Migrant Workers Qatar World Cup Leaves Behind Legacy Of Suffering”

….“The agent promised me a good salary, health insurance, food, and proper accommodation, but when I arrived in Doha it was very different,” Amos told me. “I reached the room of my friend but it was full, so I slept on the streets. My sponsor had no job, so they took me to construction. I worked for six months without a salary…

He never met his sponsor and says that his employer seized his passport. Amos and a group of fellow workers endured work shifts of twelve hours, working at times at a site that had served as accommodation for World Cup fans…

Such labor abuses should belong to the past. Qatar, local World Cup organizers, and soccer’s global governing body FIFA have trumpeted far-reaching labor reforms…but the reality on the ground remains stark as Amos’s story and that of countless other migrant workers illustrate…

A FIFA spokesperson said: “According to the International Labour Organisation, Qatar’s labour reforms have been significant and benefitted hundreds of thousands of workers with the World Cup being an important catalyst for these reforms. It is undeniable that significant progress has taken place, and it is equally clear that the enforcement of such transformative reforms takes time…