Three teenagers who were employed as security guards at the World Cup allege they are trapped in Qatar and unable to return to their homes in the Gambia, six months after the tournament ended.
Papasecka, 19, Ebrima, 18, and Saikou, 16, were left jobless and homeless after their employer fired them without warning days after the World Cup final. They say their ages were altered on official documents in the west African country to show that they were at least 18, the minimum age required to enter Qatar on a work visa.
Since January they have been housed in a government shelter where they allege their movements have been restricted and “all our documents have been taken from us”. They described the shelter as “like a prison”.
They claim that for the first two months they were not permitted to leave the shelter to look for work. By the time they were allowed out in late March, the identity cards of two of them had expired, making it impossible to work legally.
The teenagers are desperate to return home but have no money for the flights. “We are tired of everything and want to go back home, but they’re telling us to buy tickets for ourselves, which they know we can’t afford,” Ebrima said.
The findings, first reported in the Norwegian football magazine Josimar, call into question the Fifa president Gianni Infantino’s pre-tournament claim that Qatar had made “incredible” progress on workers’ rights. In a letter written in the hope of attracting international attention to their plight, the teenagers describe how they left their home in a remote village up the Gambia River after hearing there were “life-changing opportunities in Qatar because they were to host the 2022 World Cup”.
They say they sold their family land to pay for the fees demanded by a local recruitment agent, the flight and documents needed to work in Qatar. Ebrima says it cost him the equivalent of £2,480, a staggering sum in one of the poorest countries in the world. The teenagers said they set off to “make our way to a better chance at life and at least give hope and comfort to our parents and little siblings that look up to us”.
On arrival in Doha, they say they realised they had been duped. The jobs they were promised did not exist and they were left to find their own work. They claim they endured months of exploitation at the hands of rogue employers: unpaid wages, threats of deportation, passport confiscation and 12-hour shifts on construction sites in the “unforgiving weather”.
Qatar’s international media office confirmed that the three workers entered Qatar on work visas provided by a recruiter under false pretences and said the case was being investigated. A spokesperson said: “It is illegal for companies in Qatar to charge recruitment fees and workers should not arrive in Qatar with recruitment debt under any circumstances.”
On the eve of the World Cup the teenagers found work with Stark Security Services, a private security company with a contract to provide security guards for the tournament. They signed a six-month contract with a monthly salary of 2,700 rials (£580), working up to seven days a week. Contracts belonging to other Stark Security guards seen by the Guardian appear to support their claims.
Ebrima and his friends were thrilled. “We were all fortunate to have a security job at such a prestigious ceremony,” they write in the letter, before adding, “if [only] we knew how wrong we were”. Days after the World Cup final, Papasecka, Ebrima and Saikou were, “terminated” with three months left on their contracts. They allege they have still not received their full wages for the days they worked.
Hundreds of other Stark Security guards were also laid off without warning and told to leave their accommodation immediately. After weeks of protest, about 200 guards hired buses to take them to the headquarters of a company associated with Stark Security in January to negotiate for their wages. When they arrived, they were instead detained by police. Most of the guards were later deported, although three were arrested and later sentenced to six months in jail.
The teenagers did not join the other co-workers because they could not afford the 10 rial (around £2) contribution towards the cost of hiring the buses. They say they wish they had because they would most likely have been deported and would now be back home.
The spokesperson for the Qatari government said it was “now expediting the procedures to facilitate the workers’ departure in line with their wishes, while also ensuring that any outstanding dues owed to them are settled”.
Qatar has taken steps to “protect workers from exploitative practices before their arrival” by signing agreements with a number of labour-sending countries to co-operate on labour recruitment, said the spokesperson, who added: “Qatar leads the region on labour reform and is committed to further progress through a sustained, collaborative approach with its international partners.” The local World Cup organising committee, known as the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy, and Stark Security Services did not respond to requests for comment.
Fifa said it “implemented a far-reaching due diligence process” to ensure companies involved in World Cup-related construction and services followed the Supreme Committee’s standards on workers’ welfare. “We consider any non-compliance with these standards unacceptable and are actively following up when we learn about alleged breaches,” a Fifa spokesperson said.
