. Employers still have a huge degree of control over employees’ lives and with migrant worker unions banned, there are few routes to effectively raise grievances.
The country’s penal code also criminalises sex outside marriage. Police often do not believe women who report sexual violence, says Rothna Begum, a senior women’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch, instead siding with men who claim it was consensual, which can lead to the survivor facing charges.
Management often took little action or sided with guests when female workers complained about harassment, say several. In an attempt to tackle violations, Qatar’s supreme committee has been auditing hotel working conditions and an online platform for worker complaints was launched last year. Mustafa Qadri, the executive director of Equidem, believes the increased scrutiny over the next month will ensure a degree of protection for workers. Yet fundamental structural problems such as migrant workers being unable to organize and their lack of freedoms won’t have been adequately addressed once the world’s attention moves on, he says.
As in all countries around the world, unfortunate, extreme cases do occur and unscrupulous employers are a reality. But these extreme cases are not representative of the reality of life for the millions of foreign female residents who have lived in Qatar in recent decades. Protecting the rights of all women in Qatar – including female workers – is and will continue to be at the forefront of our priorities and vision.
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