Foreign workers in Qatar get some basic rights

IN MOST COUNTRIES a worker’s best bargaining tool is the ability to say: “Take this job and shove it.” Knowing staff can go elsewhere gives employers an incentive to treat them well. But foreign workers in Qatar have long lacked this basic freedom. Under the emirate’s kafala system, their visas were linked to specific employers: if they wanted to change jobs (or leave the country), they needed their boss’s permission. So the boss could abuse them with near-impunity.