Qatar, 2010–2022
Between 2010 and 2022, the World Cup’s stadiums, hotels and roads were built with migrant labor.
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Between 2010 and 2022, Qatar built the most expensive World Cup in history.
It was built by migrant workers who came looking for a better life.
Thousands of them never went home.
Behind the Passion
There is a truth the world must know.
Premieres on September 2
The film
There is a truth the world must know.
The hidden side of the Qatar 2022 World Cup. Nearly 16,000 migrant workers died in Qatar between 2010 and 2022 building stadiums, hotels and roads. The Foundation traveled to Nepal to listen to the families who are still waiting for truth, justice and redress.
In Nepal, the Foundation's team interviewed the families of the workers who never came back and the migrants who did manage to return. Their testimonies reveal abusive working conditions, debt, lack of protection and little redress for the victims.
Twelve years
It was not an accident. It was a pattern.
One line for every week between 2010 and 2022. On average, 23 migrant workers died in each of them.
2010week 1
0of 626 weeks
The exhibition
Behind the Passion
The other side of the Qatar 2022 World Cup
A photographic exhibition produced during the Foundation team's fieldwork in Nepal in November 2022, while the World Cup was being played. It brings together testimonies from the families of workers who died in Qatar and from workers who managed to return.
It premiered in Spain and was later shown at the International Museum for Democracy in Rosario. It is available to be exhibited at other museums.
Swipe to see the photographs.
Shanti Devi
Phulgama village, Nagarain, Dhanusha District, Madhesh Province, NepalShe lost her husband in Qatar while he was working on the World Cup infrastructure. She is raising four children on her own; the eldest has a severe disability.
There is no work, there is no money, and we have a huge debt we cannot pay. I cannot afford my eldest son’s treatment or my younger children’s education. I think about him every second, over and over again.Photo: Marina Sala · Nepal, November 2022
Devaki Devi Mukhiya
Paterba, Dhanusha District, Madhesh Province, Nepal · 26 years oldHer husband took his own life in Qatar. She is certain he could not bear the working conditions. On her phone, the only photo of him she has left.
After locking his room, he cooked, and then he hanged himself.Photo: Marina Sala · Nepal, November 2022
Bulai Sahni
Madhesh Province, NepalHis son, Ramkrishna Sahni, worked in Qatar twice. He did not come back the second time: he had said he would be home in ten days. After paying for rent and food, he had nothing left to send home. He died leaving a debt that cannot be repaid. The family never received his body.
Photo: Marina Sala · Nepal, November 2022The pace
The average number of lives lost every week, sustained over the twelve years it took to build the World Cup.
Ramkrishna Sahni’s mother
Madhesh Province, NepalMy son was a diamond to me.Photo: Marina Sala · Nepal, November 2022
Phuljhari Devi Saphi
Mulabari, Dhanusha District, Madhesh Province, NepalHer husband, Pheku Saphi, went to work in Qatar, came back ill and died two years later. They sold their land and spent all their savings on his treatment. The company did not pay his medical expenses.
Photo: Marina Sala · Nepal, November 2022
Sunita Yadav
Larkanha village, Siraha District, Madhesh Province, NepalHer husband died in Qatar in 2021, after working there for five years.
I fear for my children’s future, for their education. I feel alone and lost.Photo: Marina Sala · Nepal, November 2022
The exhibition keeps traveling
The photographs were taken in November 2022, while the World Cup was being played. The exhibition premiered in Spain, was shown at the International Museum for Democracy in Rosario and is still on tour.
23lives lost every week for 12 years
+10years of research by the Foundation
Hosting a World Cup is a privilege. Whoever does it must guarantee real human rights standards. Qatar must be a turning point.Guillermo Whpei, president of Fundación para la Democracia
The full report
The investigation behind the film and the exhibition, with the full figures and the testimonies gathered in Nepal.
Download the report (PDF)Now that you know, there is no going back.
Once you know, there is no going back. Sharing this story is the first step to making sure it never happens again.
While you read this
0people were born worldwide — 9 in 10 of them in low- or middle-income countries
USD 0was made in illegal profits from forced labor (ILO: USD 236 billion a year)
49.6 millionpeople live in modern slavery today. It is not history: it is now.
About us
We make visible what the world has normalized.
We are a non-profit civil society organization in consultative status with the UN, dedicated to defending human rights and democracy. We lift the veil on modern slavery, violence and discrimination — because once you know, there is no going back, and that is where change begins.
About the Foundation →
Our history
A decade of lifting the veil.
Swipe across the image or drag the bar to move through the milestones.
The road so far
From Rosario to the world.
From our headquarters at the Palacio Fuentes to Nepal, Qatar, the Vatican or the Atacama Desert: spin the globe, zoom in and open each point to see what the Foundation did there.
0 kmtraveled round trip from our headquarters
3.2 timesaround planet Earth
33%of the distance from the Earth to the Moon
0 hoursof non-stop flight (≈ 6 days in the air)
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Interactive
The birth lottery
Nobody chooses where they are born. That moment of chance decides, more than any individual effort, how long you will live, how much schooling you will get and how likely it is that someone will exploit you.
Press the button and be born again. The wheel follows real-world odds: for every baby born in Argentina, 46 are born in India.
Sources: World Bank, UNDP, UN, Walk Free / ILO (Global Slavery Index 2023). Approximate values by country.
About 83 million people are born every year.
Where would you have landed?
Who we are
A team committed to shaping public policy.
Guillermo Whpei
PresidentArgentine social entrepreneur, the son of a family of Palestinian immigrants, internationally recognized for his commitment to human rights, the promotion of a culture of peace and the fight against modern slavery.
Full profile →
Marina Sala
Executive DirectorLawyer, journalist and marketing specialist, with extensive experience designing cultural change strategies for social transformation and awareness campaigns.
Full profile →Our work
Experience that adds up. Results we can see.
News
What's happening
Our daily coverage of human rights and democracy around the world is published in Spanish. Read the news in Spanish →
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