It is hard to imagine a place more different to Qatar than the southern plains of Nepal.
Miles of fields covered in dazzling yellow mustard flowers are dotted with small villages. Cows and goats sit in front of houses mostly made of woven strips of bamboo and mud. Clothes are washed by hand, water pumped by foot and rice husks sifted by the wind.
A day’s work in the fields pays 300 to 400 rupees (£1.90 to £2.50) plus a plate of food. The dowry system, though illegal, is widespread, forcing already poor families to take desperate measures to find the money: about 600,000 rupees (£3,755) for each daughter.
Gangaram Mandal and his wife, Laduwati, had seven daughters. In 2018, faced with the almost impossible task of paying a dowry for them all, along with the daily struggle of finding enough food, Gangaram had little choice but to leave his home in the district of Saptari and go in search of work.
Already in debt, he borrowed more money to pay the extortionate recruitment fee to find work in Qatar, and once there most of his paltry salary – the equivalent of 80 pence an hour – went towards the dowries of three of his daughters. He had been there for two years when, at the end of a shift in the searing heat of the summer, he began to vomit and feel faint. Back at his labour camp he went to lie down and never woke up. According to his death certificate, he died of “Heart failure natural causes”.
His death sent his family into a spiral of debt, poverty and torment.
“How can I feed my children? There’s nothing to eat. And if I feed them, how can I pay for their education? How can I manage my daughters’ dowries?” says Laduwati, sitting outside her home.
One of her daughters, Baby Kumari, crouches sobbing beside her. “My dad used to say don’t cry. I’ll come home and give you whatever you want,” she says. “But now he’s dead and there’s no one I can turn to. Who can I call dad?”
Laduwati says she has never heard from her husband’s company and, like thousands of other families whose loved ones die in Qatar, did not receive any compensation from his employer.
All she got was the wages he was owed, and 175,000 rupees (£1,100) from his co-workers, who chipped in to help with funeral expenses.
Qatar’s labour law only requires employers to pay compensation if a death occurs at work or directly because of the work, but this narrow definition and the vague categorisation of workers’ deaths can result in companies avoiding accountability.
As in Gangaram’s case, the majority of fatalities are classified as “natural deaths” due to cardiac or respiratory failure, a term which gives no indication of the underlying cause. The cases often involve young men with no apparent health conditions.
Autopsies are rarely carried out in cases of natural death, and the Qatari government has yet to commission an independent study into deaths from cardiac arrest, despite a recommendation to do so from its own lawyers eight years ago.
Without proper investigations into these deaths, many families may be losing out on compensation. In interviews with the families of seven workers whose deaths were attributed to natural causes, none had received compensation from the companies they worked for.
While most families – including Gangaram’s – get compensation from valid personal insurance schemes they must buy in their home countries before departure, the payouts are relatively low.
In a recent report on occupational injuries in Qatar, the UN’s International Labour Organization said: “There is a need to review the approach taken to investigating deaths of seemingly healthy young workers from ‘natural causes’, to be able to determine whether they are in fact work-related … to ensure workers’ families receive due compensation.”
The deaths of workers who constructed Qatar’s new World Cup stadiums – a tiny fraction of the overall migrant workforce – may offer a glimpse into what is happening on a bigger scale across the country.
Of the 40 recorded deaths of workers employed on World Cup stadium construction projects, 37 have been categorised as ‘non-work-related’ by the event’s local organising committee. The figure includes workers who collapsed during their shift and died later in hospital, workers who died in a company bus accident and others who died in their labour camp, in some cases while asleep.
Gangaram Mandal’s case appears to fit the same pattern: a sudden death hours after the end of his shift.
The Guardian has documented two cases where the families of stadium workers whose deaths were recorded as non-work related were compensated. The organising committee did not respond to a question about whether any other families have been compensated, but said their contractors’ insurance does not usually cover non-work-related deaths.
“It was a very hot day and workers often vomit or faint in the bus. He was working inside a ditch so there was little fresh air and very high humidity. It could have played some role,” says a source with knowledge of the case.
A representative of the company which employed Gangaram says: “Why are you asking me about compensation? It was a natural death. It was not an accident. How can I give him money?”
Narad Nath Bharadwaj, a former Nepal ambassador to Qatar, believes workers should be insured with “24-hour coverage” so that families would get compensation if deaths occur outside the workplace. “Most die on the transport between the labour camp and workplace but they’re not covered for that,” he says.
But even in cases where a worker’s death is the direct result of a workplace accident, the families of the deceased appear to struggle to gain compensation.
In 2015, Suraj Bishwakarma, 24, was working as a steel fixer on a tower in Qatar when he died, allegedly by falling from a height. Neither the Nepal embassy nor his employer would respond to questions about the exact circumstances of his death.
His mother, Bishnu Maya, seems reluctant to stir up painful memories. “No one should have to suffer like me. It would have been better if I had died but the opposite happened. He died before me,” she says.
That would have been the last Bishnu Maya ever heard from Qatar, except that Suraj’s brother-in-law, Samser Bahadur Kami, also worked in the country and took up the case with the Nepal embassy. Showing remarkable tenacity, Samser says he made more than 100 visits over six years to the embassy – an hour’s drive each way from his labour camp – to push for compensation. Suraj’s family was eventually awarded compensation in late 2021. The Nepal embassy and the company that employed him and did not respond to requests for comment.
Bishnu Maya is reluctant to say how much she received, but when compensation is given for workplace accidents, it is usually about £40,000. “It’s not fair. It should have been much more. Our troubles began after his death. No one can imagine my pain. Even if I get a piece of gold, it is nothing compared to my son,” she says.
It is a story repeated across Nepal. Shankar Yadav had worked on a number of high-profile projects in Qatar, including construction of the Doha Metro, a key transport link for the World Cup.
Last year, according to a co-worker, he was working as a scaffolder 11 storeys up on an unrelated project south of Doha. The scaffolding collapsed and he and three other workers fell to their deaths. “The scaffolding was not in good condition. It was all rusty,” claims the co-worker.
The worker alleged that when police came to the site, the company quickly agreed to pay 50,000 Qatari rials – about £10,000 – compensation to the families of each worker. It is unclear whether further compensation will be paid.
Before his death, Shankar’s young wife, Sangita Kumari Yadav, says they used to talk for hours each night. “Whenever I asked him about his work, he would say, ‘The more you know, the more you will worry’, so he didn’t tell me much,” she says.
Shankar’s parents are devastated. “When my son was alive – whether or not he was earning – everything was fine, but I have so many problems now,” says his mother, Asa Devi Yadav. In tears, she clutches Shankar’s passport. “Oh my son,” she says, “Where have you gone?”
A spokesperson for the Qatar government said in a statement: “Companies in Qatar are legally required to compensate the families of all workers who lose their lives in a work-related incident. Immediately after a work-related fatality occurs … An investigation is carried out by the authorities to identify the cause of death … A final report is submitted to the legal authorities to determine the amount of compensation to be paid by the company to the family.”
The ‘supreme committee’ organising the World Cup in Qatar said in a statement that its commitment to the, “health, safety and dignity of all workers employed on our projects has remained steadfast and unwavering.”
“Our commitment to workers’ welfare has resulted in significant improvements in accommodation standards, health and safety regulations, grievance mechanisms, healthcare provision, and reimbursements of illegal recruitment fees to workers,” the statement read.
Additional reporting by Muhammad Owasim Uddin Bhuyan in Dhaka.
Qatar deaths: when ‘natural causes’ means no payout
Mohammad Kaochar Khan, Bangladesh
Khan decided to migrate to Qatar to build a future for his young son. Initially it cost him £2,800 in illegal recruitment fees; eventually it cost him his life.
Khan died in his sleep in a labour camp in Doha in November 2017 after his shift as a construction worker. His death was recorded as, “Acute respiratory failure due to natural causes”. He was 34.
Khan was employed by a major Qatari construction company whose projects include a number of hotels set to host fans during the World Cup. Khan’s wife says she has not received any compensation from the company.
Purna Bahadur Sonar, Nepal
Sonar had worked as a security guard in Qatar for seven years without a break when, in April 2021, he went to bed in his labour camp and never woke up. His death was attributed to “Acute heart failure due to natural causes”. He was 28.
His family are confused about the circumstances of his death. “When I saw his dead body, I realised no postmortem had been done,” says his brother Danak Sonar.
He said they have received no compensation from Qatar. Nepali authorities also said they could not offer compensation as his contract had expired.
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