Qatar: NHRC calls for changes to sponsorship system
The National Human Rights Committee has issued a call to amend the law regulating the sponsorship system so that arbitrary practices by some employers can be effectively tackled.
A top official at the National Human Rights Committee has called for amending the law regulating the sponsorship system so that arbitrary practices by some employers can be effectively tackled.
NHRC secretary general Dr Ali bin Semaikh al-Marri said that ever since its establishment the committee had persistently called for changing the current sponsorship system to make it more respectful of human rights.
“We have participated in drafting of the new sponsorship law and recommended changes which we saw as necessary for improving the human rights situation. But the cabinet rejected some of them and approved some others. Now the law has been referred to the Advisory Council. The NHRC can only make recommendations,” he said, while observing that the NHRC had no power to prevail over the Cabinet.
“We submit a report every three months to the Cabinet in which we ask for more freedom, both for nationals and expatriates and changing legislations which violate human rights. Our quarterly reports as well as the annual ones are not wholly welcome by many because we keep raising human rights issues,” he said.
Dismissing the “general impression” that the NHRC usually sided with expatriates against sponsors, Dr al-Marri said the committee maintained equidistance from both the parties.
About the efforts of the committee, he said that the NHRC had dealt with some 1,500 petitions during the last year, with one-third of them submitted by nationals.
“We have been accused of being biased toward expatriates at the expense of nationals but it is not true. It is the media which highlight the issues of expatriates. The problem is that the booming construction sector in Qatar requires a large number of expatriate workers and their numbers have swelled.”
Date: 10 September 2008
Source: Gulf Times
