The migrant workers in Qatar

It was in 2013 when Qatar came under fire from foreign media because of alleged forced labor, modern day slavery and other accusations pertaining to its treatment of migrant workers especially in the construction sector where most of the workers were recruited from Nepal, India, and the Philippines and from other Asian nations. The sudden outburst of criticism coming from the western media and from various human rights advocates put Qatar in the spotlight. 

It was at this point that Qatar denied all the accusations hurled towards them, but in the end the government, as reported, immediately conducted a thorough investigation and put in place recommendations to further enhance the mechanism in arresting the wanton labor violations being committed against the migrant workers toiling hard in the different locations in Qatar.

But In spite of the purported action taken or enforced by Qatar, the multinational contractors that employs hundreds of thousands of migrant workers were just callous and totally defiant in their actions and dealings with the migrant workers. Most of the employers are big time foreign multinational contractors from the neighboring Arab countries, India, Sri Lanka, South Korea, Spain, France and Britain.

There are many stories of labor violations committed by some of the multinational contractors especially Arab and British employers-yes, British employers. In one of the big construction projects in the heart of Doha, the capital of Qatar, a big British construction company known in the Middle East employs thousands of migrant workers mostly from Nepal and India. The said nationalities received very low salary of QR500/month for unskilled laborers and QR750-850/month for charge hands. A young Indian site engineer related to this writer that the migrant workers were underpaid simply because they are illiterate.

The callousness of some of the multinational construction companies making big time in Qatar is too hard to ignore. Labor violations continue to inflict humiliation and abuse on migrant workers. Beside the degrading low salary, food and poor accommodation causes more damaging effect on the living condition of migrant workers.  Food comes in trickle like one piece of fried fish with rice for dinner or lunch, alternating with old stocked chicken and two pieces of small tasteless hotdogs or sausages for breakfast and two boiled eggs as alternate. The dishes mentioned only served to Filipino migrant workers. Whereas, Nepalese and Indians always given different kinds of leguminous plants or beans cooked with curry and eaten with rice or chapatti or kobos three meals a day.

Poor accommodation is also a problem and it is often seen in the supply migrant workers’ labor camps. Here, violations are too common like no water supply, overcrowded rooms, no ventilation and other major problems like overtime and holiday pay. Most foreign contractors do not follow the implementing rules and regulations of Qatar labor laws on holidays and OT. And worse, other employers intentionally delay the salary of their labor force for months.

Qatar is in a hurry to duplicate or even surpass Dubai and that is why they set their sight to 2020 vision. Construction is in full blast and as such many migrant workers are needed to build mega and super structures. Unfortunately for Qatar they allow multinational construction companies to exert their own cruel standard of anti-labor practices and humiliating treatment of migrant workers.

Reproductive Health Law declared constitutional by the Philippine Supreme Court

The dividing issue of Reproductive Health Law was declared constitutional by the Philippine Supreme Court after long hours of deliberation among justices in an En banc session conducted yesterday, 08 April 2014, in Baguio City, the country’s summer capital. The RH Law which was approved by both lower and upper house of congress in 2012 and signed into law by President Noynoy Aquino, met  gravis or serious opposition from no less than the Catholic Church and moralist groups like the PRO-LIFE Philippines.

For thirteen long years the anti-RH Law advocates did put a good fight using their vast influence and resources through sermons in churches and other means of communication demonizing the reproductive health law as a real threat to humanity. The Catholic Church, in particular, aggressively campaigned against it, and based on their arguments the RH Law is immoral because it encourages promiscuity, family breakup, sexually transmitted diseases and abortion.

Others argued that the reproductive health law is designed to control the population of the Philippines to its lowest level as dictated upon by suspected and unseen foreign entity who is bend on world depopulation to satisfy their hidden agenda of less population less problem for human race. Whether this is true or not, the anti-RH Law advocates lost their battle but promised not to surrender the morally correct interpretation of reproductive health and responsible parenthood.

While the moralist groups are mourning their lost cause, the Pro-RH Law supporters are celebrating and rejoicing, magnifying their ardent advocacy for women and children’s rights accorded to by the constitutionality of the RH Law which became their battle cry during the decisive and intense lobbying in the lower house and the senate. The winning moments of the Pro-RH Law supporters can be seen in their faces and the reaction was too loud upon hearing the announcement of the decision by the Supreme Court’s spokesperson. The boisterous PRO-RH Law crowd overwhelmed the ANTI-RH Law advocates gathered in front of the Supreme Court building, although both opposing groups were civil to each other.  

The new law, as sufficed by the proponents or authors, primarily support the needs of women and children regarding reproductive health, sex education, family planning, use of contraceptives or birth control methods, use of government health facilities conducive to the needs of women and young adults having problems in reproductive issues. But this was contradicted by Atty. Fajardo of Ateneo Law School and a PRO-LIFE advocate. He told me that the 3 billion pesos proposed budget for the RH Law implementation won’t help any, only the big pharmaceutical companies will benefit and other stakeholders who will act as conduits and implementers of the billion budget for the Reproductive Health Law.