If these figures are true, then no matter how 'successful' the World Cup 2022 turns out, it will always be tainted by these shameful figures.
In my country (Australia), there's about 1.05 million people in the age group 25-29 (which I assume most migrant workers are about, so should be a good baseline proxy), and 800 deaths per year in that age range.
By that baseline, Qatar, with it's 2ish million migrant workers, should see about 1,600 migrant worker deaths per year if everything is normal.
15,000 over 12 years seems on the low side, if anything. I'd be more worried about the 37 deaths they've specifically narrowed to employees working on the World Cup. But even then, same problem. How many people are working on the World Cup? If it's 1,000, then 37 deaths is ridiculous, but if it's 500,000 all doing stuff like construction and transport, it could easily be close to the safety profile of that work in other countries.
Australia has about 200 workplace deaths per year. 40 per year in construction with around 1.1 million employed in the industry. Qatar is claiming 20% of it's migrant workforce is in construction and 10% of fatalities in that group are from work related incidents. That puts them at 62.5 per year per million workers. About 50% higher than Australia's construction industry. Which isn't great, but it's also not outrageous unless Australia is an outlier too (I haven't looked at other countries yet).
If you can’t do that, stop making this argument. It’s insulting.
This may or may not be the case but if there was free press, we’d have the full picture.
> Official Qatari statistics show that over 15,021 non-Qataris – of all ages and occupations – died between 2010 and 2019
I think it's worth putting the number into context. There's 2,300,000 non-Qataris in Qatar. 1,670 deaths per year puts the mortality rate at 0.72 per year per 1000 people. That's 10 times lower than the global mortality rate as of 2020.
Now I concede that the U.S. has much better workplace safety guidelines, with OSHA and the like, compared to less developed nations. So that percentage would surely be much higher in Qatar, but how much higher? If we assume that 5% of deaths were work related in Qatar, then that 0.72 overall mortality rate becomes 0.036 per 1000 people, same as the US, with its much better workplace safety guidelines, while assuming a 29x greater percent of deaths being workplace related.
[1] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr70/nvsr70-08-508.pdf
Does any of that strike you as a problem?
Or heck, do you ever think that Amnesty International is better equipped to make statements than you are?
Pragmatically (and very generously, in the situation) speaking, with no "positive feedback loop", no oversight, how can societies improve? Investigate the deaths and find ways improve the situation.
I'm not saying it's exactly like slavery, but with no transparency I don't want to be part of rationalising it and letting it pass unnoticed as if we didn't see it.
[1]: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/08/qatar-failure...
However I would say that things have improved significantly, and are continuing to improve. You speak of a lack of oversight, but the fact that we're in this thread discussing this issue means that there must be some oversight. From international bodies to individual journalists there's many people concerned about labour rights, and these concerns aren't something the Qatari government can just ignore, as evidenced by the numerous labour reforms.
That’s a problem. You’re ignoring actual experts and spreading misinformation and now lies.
Your responses to the commenter above (across a few threads) are sounding hysterical. I'm not sure why. :(
At least they seem to be trying to work out the numbers and thing for themselves, and are looking for external sources for information to work with.
Pointing out flaws in critical reports is not "defending human rights violations," it's highlighting weaknesses in the case, which helps people to make a stronger case.
(Plus, something isn't right and true just because Amnesty says it.)
People on here are totally misreading the Amnesty report though. The report does not say 15,000 immigrants died from World Cup construction. It says 15,000 migrants died over the period specified (which is a nominal figure), but it says that they do not understand what the cause of death was because Qatar is either purposefully or incompetently diagnosing this. That needs to be fixed.
I don't think Qatar is unique in mistreating its immigrant labor. Everywhere I've lived in the West does this to some degree, though not as seriously as Qatar was doing in the past.