The gates of the airport open with a swish and some men arrive with an unusually big red container on the trolley which they load into a truck and send towards the destination. It has come from Doha, Qatar to Nepal. It is a coffin which has the body of a Nepalese worker who went for construction work to Qatar in the wake of FIFA World Cup 2022 which is going to be hosted by the world’s richest country by per capita income.
This is just one among the innumerable cases of death reported from construction sites which are filled with migrant workers from the poorest countries of the world who indulge in harsh labour contracts. They virtually become slaves in the hands of their masters and survive in most uninhabitable conditions for as long as they can before they finally succumb to work pressure, slavery, lack of food and improper sanitation in these dungeons.
The workers are kept apart from the opulence and civilization by stuffing them into workers’ units which are on the outskirts of the cities where the stench of human waste nauseates one. Experiencing the struggle of a worker waiting for freedom more than earning what he deserves, will fill you with remorse and disgust.
FIFA World Cup might bring glory to the country and usher an era of football in the Middle East, but the cost of human lives can not be equated to a sports tournament which had many good bidders, anyway. With Qatar’s 50 degrees heat in the peak of summer and multiple deaths being reported every week, the world cup might not turn out to be as good an idea as it supposedly is.