ILO gives Qatar one-year ultimatum to reform labour laws

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) has given Qatar 12 months to reform its labour laws and ensure effective labour inspection, or face the prospect of an ILO Commission of Inquiry being launched next March.

Sharan Burrow, the Secretary General of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), urged Qatar for an "immediate start" to improve the treatment of domestic workers.

"Qatar has the financial means to make the real reforms, ensure safe work and decent wages, and the international community is ready to help when the government finally shows that it is serious," she added.

Government, employer and worker delegates to the ILO's Governing Body meeting in Geneva set the deadline on Wednesday.

The meeting received a report from a high-level mission of union, employer and government representatives in February, which underlined Qatar's lack of compliance with key international labour standards that it has ratified but not implemented.

The complaint against Qatar, brought by ILO delegates in 2014, calls for the government to respect ILO Conventions 29 on Forced Labour and 81 on Labour Inspection.

Key steps the government is expected to take include the complete abolition of the exit visa and the implementation of a non-discriminatory living minimum wage.

An ILO Commission of Inquiry is one of the most powerful elements in the UN body's mechanisms to help ensure compliance. It could ultimately pave the way for international sanctions.

Qatar has the financial means to make the real reforms, ensure safe work and decent wages, and the international community is ready to help when the government finally shows that it is serious. - Sharan Burrow

Speaking to the ILO this week, Qatar's new minister of administrative development, labour and social affairs Issa bin Saad al-Jafali al-Nuaimi defended the nation's labour policies, stressing that all residents of Qatar were considered equal according to the country's constitution.

Nuaimi added that foreign workers were an "important part of the fabric of Qatari society", according to Doha News.

An ILO delegation that visited the Gulf nation earlier this month said in its report that it "acknowledges the recent concrete measures taken by the government and other interlocutors" it met in Qatar to improve migrants' working conditions.

Yet "certain challenges remain and the implementation of the measures to overcome them are still under way," said the report by the team led by Japanese Ambassador Misako Kaji and including representatives of governments, employers and workers groups.

Qatar announced long-awaited but modest labour reforms in October following international criticism by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other rights groups.

The small, wealthy Gulf Arab state is building facilities to hold the 2022 soccer World Cup and has imported hundreds of thousands of construction workers for that purpose, drawing more attention to the conditions of its migrant labour community.