2022. Women and LGBTI people continued The system continued to yield powers to to face discrimination in law and practice. employers who oversee the entry and BACKGROUND residence of migrant workers in Qatar, enabling abusive employers to cancel The Gulf diplomatic crisis that started in residency permits or file cases accusing their 2017, pitting Saudi Arabia, the United Arab employee of absconding, jeopardizing Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt against Qatar, migrant workers’ legal presence in the ended in January. country. In July, the emir ratified a law paving the In May, the Ministry of Labour launched a way for the first legislative elections of the digital platform intended to enable workers to Shura Council (Consultative Assembly) to submit complaints. elect 30 of its 45 members. However, the law Despite the introduction of a new minimum excluded Qataris whose grandfathers were wage, as well as measures to monitor not born in Qatar from voting or standing for payment of wages, migrant workers election on the basis of the discriminatory continued to fall victim to wage theft by their nationality law. The election was held on 2 employers without effective recourse to October. No women were elected. justice. Indeed, access to justice for migrant In October, the emir reshuffled the cabinet workers remained largely slow and, when it and demerged some ministries. did occur, did not often lead to an effective Covid-19 vaccines were made available to remedy. The support fund set up to help all citizens and residents aged 12 and above workers recoup their money if they win their without discrimination, including foreign cases before the Committees for the residents. By October, 77% of the population Settlement of Labour Disputes worked on an had been fully vaccinated. ad hoc basis and it remained unclear to workers if and when they could collect their unpaid wages from the fund.1 MIGRANT WORKERS’ RIGHTS In April, workers from a company supplying Despite its stated commitment, the security guards went on strike to protest government failed to implement and enforce against their employer’s failure to honour the reforms, enabling abusive practices to new minimum wage. State-aligned media resurface and reviving the worst elements of reported that the government had kafala (the sponsorship-based employment investigated and found the company’s pay system). did meet the legal requirement. The Migrant workers continued to face authorities continued to fail to investigate sometimes insurmountable bureaucratic properly the deaths of migrant workers, barriers and requirements when seeking to thousands of whom have died suddenly and change jobs without the permission of their unexpectedly in Qatar in the past decade employers, even though permission was no despite passing mandatory medical tests longer a legal requirement. In December, the before travelling to the country. This failure, government reported that 242,870 migrant which precluded any assessment of whether workers had been able to change jobs the deaths were work-related, meant Qatar following the reforms in September 2020; failed to protect a core element of the right to however, it did not report how many workers life. It also denied the workers’ bereaved managed to do so without securing the families the opportunity to receive permission of their employer – information compensation from the employer or that is key to measuring progress. authorities.2 The situation remained even more difficult TRADE UNION RIGHTS for live-in women domestic workers on Migrant workers continued to be barred from account of their isolation in their employer’s forming or joining trade unions. Instead, house, which is also their workplace. authorities introduced joint committees, an Amnesty International Report 2021/22 306