FIFA World Cup 2022: Report reveals 34 workers' death in 6 years in Qatar

With controversy surrounding the 2022 FIFA World Cup, which is scheduled to be hosted by Qatar doesn't seem to end. With the 'supreme committee', which is organising the mega event, announcing that as many as nine migrant labourers, working on stadiums for the quadrennial event, lost their lives in the year 2019, the pressure seems to be growing on the organisers. The latest report has now brought up the number of deaths on FIFA World Cup 2020 projects to 34 since the construction began six years back.

As many as 31 deaths have been bracketed under 'non-work related' – a term the supreme committee uses for deaths outside worksite. As per its latest annual report on workers' welfare, there were no deaths at the workplace in 2019. However, three were killed in a bus accident with others breathing their last due to 'natural causes'.

“Any loss of life on our programme is deeply saddening,” said Hassan Al Thawadi, the head of the supreme committee, in the report.

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As per the norms, Qatari law and supreme committee's worker welfate standards need not pay compensation for non-work related deaths, however, as per a report in the Guardian, Qatar hardly carries out post-mortem after a migrant worker's death.

Moreover, there have been calls to reform pay-scale laws and the labour system. However, workers’ rights activists have criticised the lack of progress with less than three years to go before the World Cup kicks off. However, FIFA has stated that the 2022 World Cup has already played a major role in improving labour rights in Qatar while adding: “additional progress is needed for the full implementation of the commitments for comprehensive labour reform.”