Agnès Callamard encouraged FIFA to make a "screen pledge" that "mistreated employees will be reimbursed and that programs to avoid new atrocities are sponsored," noting that such a measure would "go a long way in assisting victims and their relatives rebuild their lives."
She also vehemently criticized Gianni Infantino, the president of Fifa, for telling World Cup participants to "concentrate on the football" rather than talking about Qatar's violations of human rights. According to Ms. Callamard, Infantino's letter is an obscene attempt to downplay Fifa's responsibility.
Infantino wrote that opponents were "giving out good guidance to the rest of the globe" in the letter, which was sent last month, and that countries should "not permit football to be brought into every existing ideological or political fight."
The letter did not make quiet the criticism of Qatar; rather, it infuriated human rights organizations and football authorities. As a result, nations like England and Wales declared they would continue their campaigns on off-the-field issues. Together with eight other European football associations, they declared in a proclamation that "Human rights are universal and they exist worldwide."
Concerns about LGBTQ+ rights and labor issues have led to protests all around the world against Qatar's World Cup staging. Ten European team captains have said that they will wear "One love" armbands throughout the competition to encourage diversity and inclusiveness. While Australia issued a video last month in which athletes criticized Qatar's human rights track record.
The Danish football federation said last week that Fifa had turned down a request to let its players train at the World Cup in shirts that proclaimed "human rights for everyone" "due to technical issues," according to the organisation.
Also last week, the biggest LGBTQ+ advocacy group in England criticized David Beckham for accepting a paid ambassadorship for the World Cup in Qatar, calling it "extremely upsetting" that he did so considering that Qatari legislation makes gay behavior a crime.
Di Cunningham, co-founder of the Three Lions Pride organization, said: "I'm just very upset because we — the LGBTQ+ soccer community — have put David Beckham on a pinnacle, as a tremendous partner.
Ms. Callamard's remarks came six months after Justice and 24 other rights organizations urged Infantino in a letter to Fifa to create a program to address the mistreatment of employees in Qatar.
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According to the rights organizations, "widespread workforce injustices" have been committed against hundreds of thousands of migrant workers, primarily from south and southeast Asia and Africa, including "exorbitantly high recruitment fees, terms that result to forced labor, lost and non - payment wages, and long working hours without times off."
It also brought up instances of injured employees in Qatar, such as Tul Bahadur Gharti, a Nepalese national who is said to have passed away in his sleep in November 2020 after spending more than 10 hours in sweltering heat on a construction area.
According to a death certificate provided by the Qatari authorities, Gharti, 34, passed away from "natural occurrences." The sports federations of England, Germany, France, the Netherlands, and the United States support the demand for reimbursement, as do other World Cup partners, including Coca-Cola, Adidas, Budweiser, and McDonald's. While rejecting requests for a Fifa-led compensation fund and disputing claims about the scope of the labor abuses, Qatar has called them "media attention gimmicks."
Leaving sentimental statements away
Ms. Callamard stated in a Friday opinion column for worldwide media: "Amid this mounting clamor, the most important voice of all has stayed strangely silent: Gianni Infantino.
"With both private and public statements from Fifa stating that they are 'examining the suggestion,' Infantino has continuously avoided the subject, other from a few clichés. He still hasn't replied to our united letter, unfortunately.
She went on to say that Fifa "knew — or should have known — the clear risks to employees when it awarded Qatar the tournament given the well-documented history of labor-rights violations in Qatar.
She claimed that Infantino's promise to pay restitution will show in a real way how committed Fifa is about upholding human rights.
Ali bin Samikh Al-Marri, Qatar's minister of labor, said in a statement to AFP last month that the Gulf state was already disbursing hundreds of millions of dollars in unpaid wages and labeled naysayers as "racist." He also said that the ministry's "door is wide open," adding that "if there is a person entitled to reimbursement who has not collected it, they should come forward and we will help them."
Human Rights groups, a participant in the #PayUpFIFA campaign, responded to the statement by saying that while the money already distributed was "unquestionably essential," more has to be done.
Qatar must either increase the size of its current compensation finances or create a new one.
It demands that Fifa pay $440 million (440 million euros) in compensation, which would be equal to the amount of prize money it would award during the World Cup.
With regard to "measures that will support migrant workers in Qatar long after the last World Cup game," Fifa stated on Saturday that it "remains in good continuing communication" with labor organizations and the Qatari administration. It said that Infantino's letter urging clubs to "concentrate on the football" had received a "fantastic response," with other teams supporting it.
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