How Qatar's World Cup Could End Up Killing 4,000 Migrant Workers

A recent report suggests that unless Qatar issues and enforces sweeping labor reforms soon, more than 4,000 migrant workers in the country will die before it hosts the 2022 World Cup.

"The Case Against Qatar," published earlier this month by the International Trade Union Confederation, is a damning one, citing a long list of issues that persist thanks to an archaic immigrant sponsor system. The organization's projected death toll is based on mortality trend data from the Indian and Nepalese embassies provided since 2010, when Qatar won its bid to host the World Cup. An estimated 1,200 Indian and Nepalese migrant workers have died in Qatar over the last three years from work-related causes (which include accidents on the job, heart attacks from heat stress, and illness connected to substandard living conditions). The two countries are estimated to supply near half of Qatar's 1.4 million migrant workers.