Qatar Expels Dozens of Nepali Migrant Workers, Accused of Further Human Rights Abuses
By: Jake Sirota
"Nepali traders move goods across the northern border with Tibet" Photo by Jake Sirota
Miami — According to initial reporting by Amnesty International, last week Qatari authorities detained and deported dozens of Nepali migrant workers after leading them to believe they were being taken for COVID-19 testing. According to accounts from several of the workers, they were rounded up by police, being told that they would be allowed to return to their housing after receiving testing for the disease.
Instead, the men were taken by bus to detention centers in Doha’s Industrial Area where they had their mobile phones and documents taken before being photographed and fingerprinted. They were held there for several days before being deported to Nepal on a Qatar Airways flight. One worker told Amnesty that “The jail was full of people. We were given one piece of bread each day, which was not enough. All the people were fed in a group, with food lying on plastic on the floor. Some were not able to snatch the food because of the crowd.”
According the Amnesty’s interviews with the deported workers, the workers received no explanation for their detention, nor any avenue to challenge it. None have received their due pay and severance benefits from employers before being returned to Nepal, and only three reported having their temperature taken during their detention.
Qatar’s government has denied the allegations, asserting that the workers had been “engaged in illegal and illicit activity” related to COVID-19 social distancing measures. According to a statement released by the Qatari communications bureau, "During routine inspections as part of the government's coronavirus control measures, officials uncovered individuals engaged in illegal and illicit activity. This included the manufacture and sale of banned and prohibited substances, along with the sale of dangerous food goods that could seriously threaten the health of people if consumed
"The individuals were repatriated to their country of citizenship in accordance with Qatar's legal system. The discovery of illegal activities preceded the Industrial Area public health quarantine,” the statement added.
However, 18 of the 20 men interviewed by Amnesty were not even aware that they were being held under pretense of criminal changes, and the two that were aware heard from a fellow detainee that they were accused of supplying alcohol. Arabic-language documents obtained by Amnesty suggest that none of the men were in fact charged with any crimes.
None of the men were afforded the right to challenge the legality of their detention as required by international human rights law.
The relationship between Nepali migrant workers and the Qatari government has been scrutinized in the past, particularly as construction for the 2022 FIFA World Cup has hit feverish paces over the past several years. Many migrant workers secure high-interest loans to travel overseas on the promise that work in other countries will provide enough income to pay them off and support families back in Nepal. When arriving in Qatar, however, many Nepali workers were met with slave-like conditions, having their passports withheld to prevent their leaving. At one point, Nepali laborers in Qatar were dying at a rate of one per day.
While Amnesty reports the number of deported Nepali workers to be in the dozens, Nepali media places that number as high as 400 over the course of the last several weeks. As this number increases, and as other countries curtail overseas labor and travel, Nepal’s economic prospects have darkened.
Remittances from migrant labor account for over a third of Nepal’s annual GDP, income which the global pandemic has largely excised. Because of the high number of Nepalis living and working abroad (Nepal sends more labor migrants abroad per capita than any other country in South Asia), Nepal has the strange distinction of having had more citizens die of COVID-19 related causes while abroad than in its own borders.
In a perversion of fate, the workers deported by Qatar represent a minority of Nepalis actually able to return home from work or travel abroad. Since a national lockdown was put in place on March 24, Nepal’s nationals abroad have largely been unable to reenter the country. Hundreds of Nepalis have been denied entry at the Indian border, a national division that is usually open to citizens of either country, while thousands more in farther-flung ports face similar barricades.