Vinci workers in Qatar (Sherpa)
French company Vinci has refuted allegations that it used “forced labour” in Qatar and has said it would sue French human rights group Sherpa for libel over the claims.
The company was responding to Sherpa’s attempt to launch a prosecution against it, by asking a public prosecutor in Paris to investigate its claims that the contractor’s Construction Grand Projets division and the managers of Qatari joint venture QDVC had used “forced labour” and “kept people in servitude”.
Vinci said the comments made by Sherpa about QDVC, which is 49% owned by Vinci and 51% by the state-owned Qatari Diar Real Estate Investment Company, were “slanderous” and “constitute a serious attack on Vinci’s image”.
QDVC employs 3,500 people in Qatar. Vinci said it had repeatedly welcomed unions, international NGOs and journalists onto its sites. Vinci also invited Sherpa’s representatives and journalists to inspect working and living conditions first hand.
Vinci said: “QDVC employees are free to retrieve their passports at any time, and we strictly observe working hours and rest time. 70% of our workers decide to return to QDVC and sign new two-year contracts when their previous contracts expire.”
Vinci added that it had built housing facilities at the beginning of 2015 to provide better living conditions for its workers.
Sherpa is a Paris-based not-for-profit legal organisation that focuses on economic crimes and human rights violations. Its managing director told Reuters that a member of staff had visited Qatar in November, and gathered signed testimonies of between 10 and 15 witnesses about their working conditions.
The “testimonies” apparently claimed that the migrant workers worked up to 66 hours a week, lived eight to a room and worked in “difficult even dangerous” conditions.
In November last year, Amnesty International said Qatar’s response to worker abuse was “woefully insufficient”.
