QATARSUCKS

The following article discusses a possible improvement to the current slave system regarding housemaids assigned to Qatari families:

The Indian ambassador in Doha has proposed creation of a central pool of domestic workers to protect the interests of both employers and employees, and to end exploitation.
The pool of household employees like maids and drivers could be governed by a specialized organization under the responsibility of the Qatari government. The organization could sponsor the employees while the citizens of Qatar would be only employers.

A QATARI man is charged with impersonating a policeman in order to steal QR3,840 from Bangladeshi laborers.
According to the expatriate workers, the 44-year-old man carried out the crime one afternoon in late January.

They told investigators the accused had twice entered the workers’ camp claiming to be a policeman. On the first occasion he left without incident, but on the second visit he walked into an open room and found a computer.

Mohammed Fouad, legal consultant to Qatar's national human rights committee, is juggling two phones in a new building between a Qatar Airways office and a branch of Villeroy and Boch, an upmarket household goods boutique.

Mr Fouad has an unenviable task. This month the US State Department kept Qatar and three fellow members of the Gulf Co-operation Council - Saudi Arabia, Oman and Kuwait - on Tier 3, the poorest possible rating in its Trafficking in Persons report.

Domestic workers in Qatar will soon be covered by a law providing them with better working conditions.
The Advisory Council approved the 26-article law at its weekly session yesterday. The draft now needs HH the Emir’s approval.

According to the draft law, domestic helps shall be entitled to a paid day off a week in addition to time for rest, food and sleep as stipulated in Article 13. The employer should pay the monthly salary by the third day of every month either in cash or deposit the amount in a bank account in the employee’s name.

A 20-year-old Qatari has denied causing death by reckless driving – telling a court he was travelling at “only” 140kph.
The presiding judge, Salah al-Sharif, reminded him that the maximum speed on the country’s roads was 120kph and that the accident took place in an 80kph zone.

Furthermore, should he be found guilty of the offence, he will have to pay blood money out of his own pocket because his car was not insured at the time. The driver also told the court his brakes had not been working.

SKY-HIGH rents and lack of living space are turning Doha’s old town into a slum with makeshift rooms stacked on top of residential buildings. One area visited by Gulf Times in Doha ‘Jadeed’ found a number of low-income workers sleeping in shelters made up of old mattresses, scrap metal and tin roofs.

“Welcome to the ghetto of Doha,” greeted Ahmadzai, who was dripping with sweat while sitting in the courtyard of a building at 3.30pm.

For a top-rate salary of US$1,000 a month, Kenyan and other African athletes are being shopped around the world's wealthiest track and field nations in a market that one leading administrator said yesterday was “like trading slaves”.

“It is exploitation,” Isaiah Kiplagat, the president of the Kenyan athletics federation, said. “It is happening with children as young as 15. Young people who aren't qualified to represent themselves are being deceived into changing nationality for a few shillings.”

Doha/Prague - Qatari Prince Hamid bin Abdal Sani, whom a Czech court found guilty of sex with underage girls in 2005 and who was afterwards extradited to Qatar, will not face trial in his homeland, as the Qatari prosecutor general has halted his prosecution, Czech station Radio Cesko reported today.

After his Czech sentence in mid-2005, Sani appealed the verdict, which therefore did not take effect. On the decision of the then Czech justice minister, Pavel Nemec, he was extradited to Qatar for further prosecution.

US EMBASSY officials are urging a liberalisation of the sponsorship law to combat forced labor and human trafficking violations within Qatar. The call comes amid increasing speculation regarding a draft law, currently awaiting approval, governing the entry and exit of foreigners, their residence and sponsorship.

Thousands of worshippers gathered in a long and emotional ceremony on Saturday for the consecration of the first Roman Catholic Church in the Gulf state of Qatar amid warnings by Western embassies to their nationals to be vigilant.

Cardinal Ivan Dias presented the parish with a chalice given by Pope Benedict XVI during the five-hour Mass, ending decades of underground worship in this Sunni Muslim and deeply conservative country.

Many worshippers wept when a relic of Saint Padre Pio da Pietrelcina was introduced.

Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a controversial Muslim cleric who defends suicide attacks, has been refused a visa to enter to the UK after a campaign by David Cameron.

The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) said that it deplored the decision and accused the government of caving in to “unreasonable demands spearheaded by the Tory leader”.

Muhammad Abdul Bari, the secretary-general of the MCB, said that Dr al-Qaradawi enjoyed respect as a scholar throughout the Muslim world.

A STUDY has proven that there is violence against women within the family in Qatar. The survey, conducted by Kaltham al-Ghanem of the Social Department at Qatar University, sampled 2,778 QU female students, comprising 84% of Qataris and 16% of other nationalities, aged between 17 and 25 years.

The survey is the first scientific study on violence in Qatar, the result of which will be used to advocate and explore the necessity of enacting legislation on violence against women in the country, sources said.

Among the Nepali overseas workers who went to gulf countries to build their future, more than five hundred died in the year 2007 alone, news report said.

Most of the deaths occurred in traffic accidents, due to work place hazards, heart attacks or by committing suicide, rather than natural causes, the report said. The deaths mostly occurred in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Indian housemaids and other domestic helps are working in "often distressing" conditions in West Asia, Commissioner for NRI Affairs (Goa) Eduardo Faleiro said after a visit to Kuwait and Qatar.

"We received complaints of physical torture and abuse, non-payment of salary for several months and filing of false cases against them," Faleiro, a former Indian minister of state for external affairs, said after last week's visit.