High and dry: World Cup workers exploited, stranded and destitute

Rabindra Kewat, 28, is already making plans for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

The softly-spoken Nepali, who lives in the impoverished and remote village of Manigram, hopes to watch the games on a tattered old television in the three room house he shares with six other family members.

But Kewat’s interest is not just sporting. He is one of thousands of Nepali workers who travelled to Qatar to help build the Janoub and Khalifa International Stadiums there. He dreamt – and was promised – that the work would be hard but lucrative. Instead it has cost him part his family farm and left him deep in debt.

In March 2015, Kewat was delighted to be offered employment as an electrician on what has become one of the world’s biggest construction projects. Despite hearing horror stories about the treatment of his countrymen, he was determined to lift his family out of poverty and proud to be offered the chance to help deliver the 2022 World Cup.

He would work, he was told, on the state-of-the-art stadium cooling systems which were integral to Qatar successfully bidding for the tournament. The experience and the wages would set him in good stead for years to come.

But Kewat’s dream turned into a nightmare when his employers, Mercury MENA, failed to pay five months of his wages from January 2017. The company folded 11 months later leaving hundreds of Nepalis, Filipinos, Indians and Bangladeshis destitute and stranded.

Kewat, like the majority of Nepali expatriates, borrowed an enormous amount of money to secure his new job overseas – a रू200,000 Nepali Rupee (£1,350) loan at 18 per cent interest from a micro-finance company, equating to more than half the average annual wage in Nepal.

Under Nepali law, a migrant traveling to work in Qatar should be provided with a free visa and travel but this is rarely implemented so Kewat instead turned to one of Kathmandu’s estimated 800 unscrupulous employment agents, Paradise International, for help.

His loan paid the agency to secure employment, his flight to Qatar, working visa and the required medical test.

Kewat was confident his QR1,000 Qatari Riyal (£213) monthly wage would allow him to pay off the loan and purchase more farm land for his family. Instead, he is owed QR7,823 (£1,668) – five months wages and overtime – and is crippled by his loan repayments.

Kewat remained in Qatar for six months after Mercury MENA collapsed relying on food hand-outs from charities like the Red Crescent, hoping he would finally be paid. Eventually, he gave up and returned home in December 2017.

“I was starving so I left, I also could not afford medical treatment and was developing regular fevers which would last four or five days,” he laments.

The family home in Manigram was put up as collateral on the loan and they have already been forced to sell land to keep up with repayments.

Devi Lal Parajuli is another who believed the offer of work with Mercury MENA was the opportunity of a lifetime.

The 42-year-old had been a farmer in Pokhara but could no longer pay for the education of his three children, so he left his family to travel to Qatar.

However, he found himself in serious financial difficulty when Mercury MENA folded owing him QR9,345 (£1,985) – six months of wages.

Without a source of income – and with a mounting loan debt – he was unable to pay his 12-year-old son’s medical care when he contracted pneumonia.

“We Nepalis are poor and we went there to take care of our families and pay for the education of our kids,” he said. “We worked on this big project so they should have paid us.”

His son survived but Parajuli worries about the future as doctors say his immune system has been compromised and he will be increasingly vulnerable to opportunistic infections like the flu.

“The Mercury MENA case is tragic, the impacts are so long-lasting,” said Angela Sherwood, a Researcher on Migrants and Labour Rights at Amnesty International.

“We’ve seen people who’ve had to sell houses and haven’t been able to pay for medical care for their families.”

The exact number of Mercury MENA workers still waiting for unpaid wages is unclear as many fall out of contact when they return home to remote villages.

However, a spokesperson for the returned Mercury MENA workers told the Telegraph there are hundreds of cases like Kewat’s in Nepal.

Amnesty International has itself documented the personal stories of 78 unpaid former Mercury MENA workers in Nepal, India and the Philippines.

Qatar is one of the richest nations in the world thanks to abundant natural gas and oil reserves, but it relies on migrant labour from poorer South Asian countries to fill unskilled jobs.

“A Nepalese workforce is seen as particularly useful in the construction industry in Qatar and there is this symbiotic relationship that has developed between Qatar and Nepal,” explains Dr Gareth Price, Senior Research Fellow at Chatham House. “There are limited opportunities in Nepal; it is one of the poorest economies in Asia.”

When Qatar was controversially awarded the right to host the tournament there was much consternation among its political elites.

It provided a unique opportunity to show off the Gulf nation to the world but many more Nepali workers would be needed to construct nine new stadiums.

Complaints related to Qatar’s kafala – or foreign labour laws – soon surfaced.

Nepalis were forbidden from leaving the country or changing jobs without the permission of their employers, endured arbitrary detention, made allegations of physical abuse and were forced to work in dangerous conditions, often in extreme heat.

Bhim Bahadur Kumar, 34, from the village of Khaireni Katta was one of them.

He told the Telegraph he was employed by Mercury MENA as an electrician in Al Janoub Stadium but also helped construct a new light-railway system for Lusail City, a metropolis constructed from scratch which will host the final of the tournament.

While working underground, a poorly maintained pipe burst spilling an unknown acid over his right leg.

“I was in a lot of pain, I could have died if I didn’t receive treatment in five minutes,” he said.

Mercury MENA refused to pay him compensation and he is forced to pay for his on-going medical bills himself despite the firm owing him QR4,000 (£850) for four months of unpaid work.

In October 2017, the Qatari government pledge to reform the kafala system after NGOs like Amnesty International reported on the ‘appalling treatment’ of migrant workers.

The government promised labourers would be able to file claims in new specialised free courts if they were not paid wages, with a resolution reached in six weeks.

It also set up a “Workers’ Support and Insurance Fund” to compensate expatriate workers if the firms they worked for failed to do so.

However, not one former Mercury MENA employee the Telegraph spoke to in Nepal had been compensated while a police report allegedly filed over two years in Qatar ago remains ignored.

May Romanos, a Middle East and North Africa Researcher at Amnesty International, says remaining costs such as translating legal documents and commuting to court still restricts migrants.

Appeals to the Nepali Embassy in Qatar had fallen on deaf ears too.

“I think there is a concern in all of the countries of South Asia that if they [the Nepali Embassy] make a fuss about their nationals, then their nationals will simply get replaced by those from another country,” said Dr Gareth Price.

Remittances, largely from the Middle East, constitute a remarkable 32 per cent of the entire Nepali economy.

Despite the Qatari government promising reform, progress seems to have been limited. The Nepali Embassy released figures in June this year which showed working conditions in Qatar claim the lives of 110 of its citizens every year.

At the Pravasi Nepali Co-Ordination Committee’s (PNCC) offices the phone doesn’t stop ringing with complaints.

Set-up by a Nepali who was exploited in the United Arab Emirates, Son Prasad Lamichhane, the Kathmandu-based NGO assists and repatriates up to 800 people a year.

Lamichhane welcomed the Qatari reforms in principle but says the likelihood of Nepalis being able to support themselves while they waited on a judgement was still slim.

“It is still a very lengthy process; people have no money or no food and how long can you be in that situation?” he said.

Lamichhane called on the Nepali government to do more to support returning workers unaware of their rights.

In September 2018, the Qatari Government released the following statement: “While Mercury MENA no longer operates in Qatar, legal matters will continue and we will conduct a full investigation. We will address any existing issues or violations and remedy any remaining matters.”

The Qatari government told the Telegraph it was continuing to investigate instances of non-payment and hoped to reach a positive resolution at a future date.

“It could be a hugely positive moment for Qatar to make good on their promises and provide compensation to the workers,” said Angela Sherwood from Amnesty International.

“Migrant workers who are toiling in the country to make Qatar’s dream to host the World Cup possible, deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.”

FIFA said it “takes very seriously any allegations of human rights violations related to its events.”

A spokesperson said that the organisation had spoken with the Qatari Ministry of Labour several times about the Mercury MENA workers but denied they had been “engaged on a FIFA World Cup construction site.”

Meanwhile, the Qatari authorities push ahead with exorbitant plans.

They recently announced luxury hotel suites would be built within the £659 million Al Bayt Stadium for an unrivalled view of the action.

It is a far cry from Manigram village where Kewat and his family are facing a more precarious future than ever.

They have been informed if they do not repay their loan debt by January – something only possible with full payment of the wages owed by Mercury MENA – house and land will be repossessed, making them homeless.

“This will ruin my life and my family,” said a clearly distraught Kewat, cradling his 11-month-old daughter in his arms.

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