• FIFA and Qatar should compensate abused migrant workers and their families now; 
  • Uganda bans prominent LGBT organization; 
  • Proposed US law threatens to roll back labor protection of gig workers; 
  • Violations continue on anniversary of the Geneva Conventions. 
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Today marks 100 days before the FIFA World Cup kicks off in Qatar. Yet, still, Qatar and FIFA have failed to provide adequate remedies for workers who suffered serious abuses while making the global football event possible, such as deaths, injuries and wage theft. Since 2010, when FIFA awarded the 2022 World Cup to Qatar despite its poor human rights records and massive infrastructure deficit, thousands of migrant workers who helped build the stadiums, hotels and transport infrastructure for the World Cup have died due to unexplained causes. Without a breadwinner their families face an uncertain future. While Qatari authorities in recent years have compensated some migrant workers for the abuses they suffered, for many the compensation systems, which were mostly created after 2018, came too late. Human Rights Watch and others have repeatedly called on Qatar to fulfil its obligations and on FIFA to meet its human rights responsibilities and pay up. As the Global Coalition for Financial Remedy for Deaths and Wage Theft demands, FIFA should reserve an amount equivalent to the US$440 million prize money provided to teams participating in Qatar to be invested in funds that will provide remedy to workers. With the tournament a mere hundred days away, it is critical for FIFA and Qatari authorities to publicly commit to doing so. While there is nothing Qatar nor FIFA could ever do to make up for the loss of a loved one, financial compensation to struggling families for migrant worker deaths will at least reduce lasting harms. To mark the countdown and hear more about this, join us later today for a Twitter Space with the president of the Norwegian Football Federation, Lise Klaveness; the former captain of Finland’s national football team, Tim Sparv; and Human Rights Watch’s senior women’s rights researcher, Rothna Begum

Uganda’s National Bureau for Non-governmental Organizations has banned a prominent lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) rights organization, for not having officially registered with it. Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) had been providing education on sexuality since 2004, and advocating for health services for LGBTQ people. The ban is the latest example of harassment and restrictions against Ugandan rights groups, especially those working on LGBTQ rights. In recent years, police have raided gay-friendly bars and shelters for homeless LGBTQ youth, and arrested activists, subjecting them to forced anal examinations. 54 civil society groups were indefinitely suspended without due process in August last year, further restricting the work of rights groups in the country. 

A group of US lawmakers has proposed a law that effectively excludes gig workers, and many others who work on-demand, from minimum wage and overtime pay. The proposal reinforces the narrative that workers must choose between flexibility in how and when they work and their right to a decent living. In reality, many workers could end up with neither. If Congress is serious about workers’ freedom and wellbeing, it should expand labor protections for gig workers, not roll them back.

With no end in sight to the war in Ukraine and with rights organisations, including Human Rights Watch, having documented multiple violations of the laws of war during the last 170 days since Russia’s invasion, including countless war crimes by Russian armed forces, it might be opportune to remember that today marks the anniversary of the 1949 Geneva Conventions. The Conventions are a series of treaties that contain essential rules protecting civilians, prisoners of war (POW) and combatants or members of the armed forces, who are wounded, sick or shipwrecked, as well as medical personnel, military chaplains and civilian support workers of the military. They are the cornerstone of contemporary international humanitarian law (IHL), and clearly state that civilians may never be the deliberate target of attacks, that POWs are to be treated humanely and that the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is given the right of access to persons deprived of their liberty as a result of the conflict. Russia’s indiscriminate attacks on hospitals, schools and densely populated areas in Ukraine, which have killed and wounded scores of civilians, the forcible disappearance and transfer of Ukraine civilians to Russian territory, the torture and execution of civilians by occupying Russian forces, and the humiliating, at times inhumane treatment of POWs are all serious violations of the Conventions and international humanitarian law, with some amounting to war crimes. Maybe Russia could mark today's anniversary by ending its daily flouting of the Geneva Conventions?