About 10, 000 workers, who were victims of labour abuse during 2015, have flew back to their native countries from Qatar, the Government revealed in its official figures.
The figure was released by the Ministry of Administrative Development, Labour and Social Affairs, coinciding with the country’s announcement of the abolishment of its Kafala labour system from Tuesday.
Travel expenses of the said workers were taken care of by the State, the official added.
Beginning from today, Qatar has introduced a new contract-based system for expat workers, which has so far been received positively and deemed robust when it comes to protecting the rights of the foreign workers.
Previously, under the Kafala system all foreign workers required a local sponsor to legally work in Qatar, the sponsor could have been a company or an individual. Foreign workers were also required to take written permission from their respective sponsors for changing their jobs or to leave the country.
Under the new system, to leave country employee needs to inform his employer before three days and apply through in Metrash 2 system.
Currently, there are about 2.1mn migrant labourers in Qatar, according to the ministry, most of them from South Asian countries such as Nepal, Bangladesh and India.
A substantial chunk of these workers are occupied with the 2022 football World Cup infrastructure projects.
