Six months from World Cup, Qatar on the defensive over rights

Six months from the start of the World Cup, mega-rich Qatar has its stadiums ready but cannot shrug off doubts over the way it treats migrant workers, women, and the LGBTQ community.

The tiny Gulf state has been in the rights spotlight ever since it was awarded the World Cup in 2010. The focus returned on Thursday when Amnesty International demanded that FIFA set up a $440 million fund for "abused" foreign labourers.

Qatar's conservative Muslim leaders, who have spent an estimated $300 billion on infrastructure around the World Cup -- including seven new stadiums and a chunk on improving rights for the 2.5 million foreign workers -- increasingly feel that nothing they do will please their critics.

Critics say Qatar's progress over the last decade has been mixed and that more pressure must be applied on the country and world body FIFA before the first ball is kicked in the 32-nation tournament on November 21.

Qatar's giant construction sites, where thousands of workers are said to have been injured or died, have caused most international concern.

European football stars such as England captain Harry Kane have spoken out, while Germany's team wore shirts spelling out H-U-M-A-N R-I-G-H-T-S before one World Cup qualifier last year.

Qatar has since 2016 dismantled much of its Kafala labour system, which stopped a worker changing job or leaving the country without an employer's permission. A minimum wage has been introduced along with limits on the time that can be worked in extreme heat.

Head of the UN International Labour Organisation project in Qatar, Max Tunon said conditions had improved for hundreds of thousands of workers who can now voice complaints. Not all rules are being applied, however.

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"We still see cases where employers are retaliating against workers who wish to change jobs, we still see cases where workers are not being paid their due wages, there are still cases where domestic workers are not given the right to a day off per week."

But Tunon said the World Cup has put Qatar on a "positive trajectory".

"You can see other countries in the region also undertaking reforms but not many countries around the world are undertaking them at the same pace as they have here."

Rights for women and the LGBTQ community are more sensitive because of fears of a backlash from traditionalists among the 280,000 Qataris.

Two-thirds of graduates from Qatar's universities are female and since 2020 women have been able to get a driving licence without permission from a male guardian. But Rothna Begum, women's rights specialist at Human Rights Watch, said change has been "glacial" over the past decade.

Women still need permission from their "male guardians" to marry, study abroad, work in many government jobs and even travel abroad when they are unmarried and under 25.

When authorities allowed women to get a driving licence, "it only happened after months of women taking to social media to complain", said Begum. Across the border in Saudi Arabia, licence restrictions were lifted in 2018.

"The World Cup has done little to change the situation for women other than to expose the increasing number of women migrants to abuse and discrimination," said Begum.

Homosexuality is illegal in Qatar and authorities are struggling to convince lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer fans among the 1.4 million expected at the World Cup that they will be safe.

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Concerns were raised at the FIFA Congress in Doha in March. The world body says that LGBTQ symbols are allowed in any stadium, while Qatari authorities have appealed for outsiders to respect their "conservative" culture.

Merissa Khurma, Middle East director at the Wilson Center think tank in Washington, said Qatar is only one of many countries where homosexuality is banned and the World Cup may not be enough to change it.

"It might go in both directions and you might have more acceptance but you might also have very strong reactions," she said.

"One big event is not going to trigger a sea of change in this regard, but the fact that the discussion is happening is important," she said.