The "widespread" practice of confiscating low-income workers' passports in Qatar has left hundreds languishing for up to a year in the Gulf state's deportation centre, the Guardian has learned.
Amnesty International has uncovered evidence linking the Qatari government to the practice. Some employers gave domestic workers' passports to authorities at the interior ministry if workers absconded, the human rights group discovered. "This practice suggests that the government may implicitly accept the principle that domestic workers do not hold their own passports," says an Amnesty report, "My Sleep Is My Break": Exploitation of Migrant Domestic Workers in Qatar, published on Wednesday.
All of the dozens of domestic workers the Guardian met in Qatar during an investigation in January had been forced to hand over their passports to employers. François Crépeau, the UN special rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, met just one worker who had managed to retain his passport when he visited the Gulf state in November.
The man was in the overcrowded deportation centre in which more than 1,300 people were detained. Visitors to the female quarters of the building on the outskirts of the capital, Doha, have described seeing babies and up to three women sleeping on a single mattress. Full story...
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Amnesty International has uncovered evidence linking the Qatari government to the practice. Some employers gave domestic workers' passports to authorities at the interior ministry if workers absconded, the human rights group discovered. "This practice suggests that the government may implicitly accept the principle that domestic workers do not hold their own passports," says an Amnesty report, "My Sleep Is My Break": Exploitation of Migrant Domestic Workers in Qatar, published on Wednesday.
All of the dozens of domestic workers the Guardian met in Qatar during an investigation in January had been forced to hand over their passports to employers. François Crépeau, the UN special rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, met just one worker who had managed to retain his passport when he visited the Gulf state in November.
The man was in the overcrowded deportation centre in which more than 1,300 people were detained. Visitors to the female quarters of the building on the outskirts of the capital, Doha, have described seeing babies and up to three women sleeping on a single mattress. Full story...
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