tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6763377479629539589.post1711935295054065283..comments2023-10-11T09:41:19.089+02:00Comments on Philosophical Comment: 1400 Dead Going On 4000: The Blood Soaked FIFA 2022 Qatar World Cup Built with Slave Labor Christian Munthehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03373442927438898939noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6763377479629539589.post-37361590365811683962016-02-10T18:16:07.137+01:002016-02-10T18:16:07.137+01:00The BBC reports this is a hoax. Death rates of Ind...The BBC reports this is a hoax. Death rates of Indian workers in Qatar look to be lower than those of similar age individuals in India or (by a factor of 4), and even lower than Britain.<br /><br />http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33019838<br /><br />The ITUC, though, is counting the deaths of workers in any line of work and from any cause, including road accidents and heart attacks.<br />Some would argue that it was a bad idea to hand the World Cup to a country where so many migrant workers are dying - even if some are dying on construction projects unconnected with the World Cup, and others are dying in unrelated sectors of the economy.<br />But the Indian Government says in a press release: "Considering the large size of our community, the number of deaths is quite normal."<br />The point officials are making is that there are about half a million Indian workers in Qatar, and about 250 deaths per year - and this, in their view, is not a cause for concern. In fact, Indian government data suggests that back home in India you would expect a far higher proportion to die each year - not 250, but 1,000 in any group of 500,000 25-30-year-old men. Even in the UK, an average of 300 for every half a million men in this age group die each year.<br />Tim Noonan from the ITUC believes the comparison is misleading. The migrant workers in Qatar are not only young, they are fit. "Qatar requires them to be given a medical examination to screen them for pre-existing conditions, so this is comparing apples and pears," he says.<br />Of course, India is a very poor country and Qatar is a very rich country - the richest in the world in terms of GDP per capita - so it's perfectly reasonable to say that Qatar should do better by its migrant workers. But then it is.<br />So is the figure of 1,200 Qatar World Cup deaths just meaningless? No, says Tim Noonan. He denies the ITUC came up with the figure just to get headlines. In fact he thinks the real figure may well be higher.Carlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16384464120149476437noreply@blogger.com