Committee Chair Alt criticizes human rights situation in Qatar
The Chair of the Bundestag Committee on Human Rights and Humanitarian Aid, Renata Alt, still sees a great need for reform at World Cup host Qatar. With the finals starting next Sunday, Qatar “want to play at the top of the world. Then it is important to keep up with the world leaders when it comes to human rights. Qatar still has an incredible amount to do,” said the FDP politician in an interview with “web.de”. The World Cup not only serves “to entertain the population and the fans for four weeks”.
Alt sees a lot of catching up to do, especially when it comes to rights for women and the LGBTQ community. She called on the world football association FIFA to link the World Cup awards more closely to compliance with human rights and also to sustainability standards. LGBT is the English abbreviation for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender. The variants LGBTQ, LGBTQI or LGBTQIA+ are also often used. Each letter represents one’s gender identity or sexual orientation.
According to the German trade unionist Dietmar Schäfers, the much-criticised working conditions on the World Cup construction sites in Qatar have improved significantly. “My impression is that the migrant workers on the World Cup construction sites have had it much better recently. Thanks to the measures taken in recent years, the working conditions corresponded to German or American standards,” said the vice president of the global trade union federation BWI of the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” (Thursday edition).
However, the improvements would apply “only to the around 40,000 workers on the World Cup construction sites at the top,” emphasized Schäfers: “It still happens that migrant workers are withheld their wages or their passports are withheld.”