On December 11, 2024 FIFA awarded the hosting rights for the 2034 World Cup to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The announcement was as widely anticipated as it was criticised. FIFA was lambasted for tailoring the bidding process to ensure Saudi Arabia was the sole bidder for the 2034 tournament. Given the deaths of thousands of migrant workers from South Asia, most from India, in preparation for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, western human rights organisations and global trade unions have again raised an alarm, but given that it is our citizens who will count the tragic cost of FIFA’s decision, an urgent conversation is required in India.
The economies of the six states that make up the Gulf Coordination Council (GCC) – Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE and Oman – are structurally dependent on migrant workers, who comprise more than half the region’s population. Indians make up the largest proportion of migrants in the GCC at 8.8 million in 2022. In the same year, there were over 2.46 million Indians in Saudi Arabia. From the government’s response in the Lok Sabha to Ara MP Sudama Prasad’s question on November 29, 2024, we learn that between 2021 and 2024 the government issued almost 12 lakh Emigration Clearances (proxy for blue collar worker visas) for the GCC. Of these 5.63 lakh or 47% were for Saudi Arabia alone.
The Communist Party of India (Marxist Leninist) (CPI(ML)) MP’s question also revealed that 3,969 Indians have died in the GCC between 2021 and 2024, including 1,025 in Saudi Arabia alone. It must be remembered here that migrant workers are mostly young and must be certified medically fit to work before being employed. A 2022 study conducted by the Vital-Signs partnership, a coalition of non-profit organisations from five origin states and FairSquare, a UK-based non-profit, revealed that approximately 10,000 migrant workers from south and southeast Asian die every year in the Gulf, with more than half of those deaths effectively unexplained and in the context of a series of cumulative and poorly mitigated risks to their health, not least the Gulf’s extreme temperatures, which are becoming ever more deadly as the climate crisis intensifies.
Lack of investigations into worker deaths and shoddy certification of deaths labelling most of them as due to “natural causes,” are major reasons why the real causes behind migrant workers’ deaths remain unknown.
There is ample evidence of serious labour and human rights violations faced by migrant workers in Saudi Arabia. Human Rights Watch (HRW), a leading global human rights organisation, has documented widespread labour rights violations across different sectors where migrant workers are employed throughout the country. HRW’s recent report titled “Die First, and I’ll Pay you Later” draws on accounts of over 140 workers, their family members, employers and state authorities in Saudi Arabia.
Wage theft, exposure to occupational health risks and state failure to protect migrant workers from abuse rank high in HRW’s findings. The severity of violations is extreme in sectors manned by low-income workers, such as construction. The Building and Woodworkers International has recently filed formal complaints against Saudi Arabia at the International Labour Organisation (ILO) for human rights abuse and wage theft of 21,000 workers employed by Saudi construction companies.
The high incidence of unexplained deaths among Indian nationals in Saudi Arabia and the lack of protection is a scandal in plain sight which needs urgent governmental and public attention and with Saudi Arabia awarded the 2034 FIFA World Cup, there is every reason to believe that the problems described above will worsen in scale and intensity.
Research on mega sports events in the past, especially FIFA’s operations and hosting of its World Cup, shows that the high infrastructural demands result in a hastened pace of activity often at the cost of necessary oversight. In the case of Saudi Arabia, this risk is compounded by a labour regime that already renders workers’ lives highly vulnerable.
For its part, despite having the necessary leverage, FIFA chose not to make any enforceable demands when it came to well documented concerns around human rights, migrant workers’ exploitation and abuse as well as legalised exclusion of sexual minorities in the host country. Given what we know about the harsh and often abusive working conditions faced by migrant workers in the country, and FIFA’s appetite for prioritising profits over lives of workers, India and the governments of other countries sending their workers need to urgently get their act together and protect their citizens in the country.
The sharp increase in Indian workers migrating to Saudi Arabia, as revealed in the government’s response, is expected to continue as demand for workers in the country is projected to increase. FIFA events have exacting requirements and tight timelines for completion. The mega sporting event in Saudi Arabia will require construction of 11 new stadiums with a combined capacity of 5,55,370 seats as well as refurbishment of four existing stadiums across five cities. In addition, the event requires the construction of an additional 1,85,000 hotel rooms, drastically expanding the capacity of 12 international airports, building intercity and metro rail connections as well as the entirely new city of Neom, which is expected to host two Quarterfinal matches.
The Indian state is responsible for the lives and welfare of its citizens, even if they face duress outside its geographic jurisdiction. India’s efforts towards this end in the Gulf would be beneficial for Saudi Arabia as well, since its treatment of migrant workers is a blot on its image which it seeks to reform through the hosting of the mega event. If there is a lesson to be learned from the Qatar 2022 World Cup it is that the countries that provide the labour to the Gulf states must be part of the conversation and must be the ones that press for their protection – we can not and should not rely on western NGOs and the international media to protect Indian workers.
India is often regarded as an emerging superpower. It is an image that the current government in particular likes to project domestically. Rhetoric aside, the case of India’s blue-collar emigrant workers provides the true test of India’s superpower ambitions. Can the Indian government protect its workers overseas?
Usman Jawed conducts research on Indo-Gulf labour migration with a UK based non-profit called FairSquare.