Dr Ali bin Samikh Al Marri, Minister for administrative development, labor and social affairs,

Your Excellency,

While I applaud you for your public commitment to reform the kafala system in Qatar, the changes made to date are insufficient to protect migrant workers from forced labor and exploitation.

I ask that you take further steps to end forced labor by ensuring the strong implementation of reforms:

1. Introducing and enforcing penalties on employers where the practice of contract substitution takes place, that forces workers to accept lower wages on arrival into Qatar.

2. Ensuring migrant workers’ passports are returned, and that workers hold their own passports and are given their worker IDs, through more effective enforcement and implementation of current laws targeting employers.

3. Removing impediments to workers leaving the country, and changing employers including any employer objections to exit visas.

Whilst these are important first steps in the fight to ensure basic worker rights, there is a need to go much further towards ending the abuse of migrant workers’ rights and ensure reforms are felt by workers on the ground.

Thank you for your leadership on this issue and I look forward to hearing further announcements and details of substantive reforms to end modern slavery in Qatar.

Sincerely,