To deliver what the bid book promised — twelve stadiums, a metro, an airport expansion, a new port, hundreds of thousands of hotel rooms — Qatar imported a workforce. By 2017, more than two million migrants were in the country, outnumbering Qatari nationals seven to one. Most came from India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Kenya and the Philippines, recruited under fees of $1,000 to $4,000 paid to agents in their home countries.

In this episode:

- The kafala system, recruitment debt, confiscated passports — the structural conditions that locked workers into employment they could not leave

- The Guardian's Pete Pattisson investigation, 2013–2022, including the 6,500 figure — what that number actually means

- The Cardiff University 2019 study finding that ~200 Nepalese deaths recorded as "natural causes" were likely heat-related

- The 2017–2020 ILO reform programme: the dismantling of kafala, the wage protection system, the Gulf's first non-discriminatory minimum wage — and where implementation has fallen short

Key documents cited:

- Guardian, "Revealed: 6,500 migrant workers have died in Qatar since World Cup awarded" (Pete Pattisson, 23 February 2021)

- Amnesty International, "All Work, No Pay" (September 2016) and follow-ups through 2022

- ILO Qatar country reports (2016–2022); Cardiff University study, Cardiology (2019)

Full transcript and source links: thefifafiles.com/episodes/10-the-builders

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