Our great city of Atlanta has an historic legacy of standing for civil rights and against oppression. However, Qatar Airways and the nation of Qatar have a horrific record of abusing women, exploiting workers, and violently punishing the LGBT community. Their values are in direct conflict with our own, and therefore should not be allowed to fly into Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. Qatar
Airways blatantly abuses its employees who work under the careful watch of the Qatari government. In Doha, the airline mandates that its employees live in company housing with strict curfews and where their personal lives are monitored, and bans workers from marrying without its permission. Female employees who become pregnant can be terminated. Women also must adhere to strict grooming policies, including weight limits, a throwback to an era when age and sex discrimination were the norm.
All workers in Qatar are prohibited from unionizing or protesting. Domestic laborers are excluded from the country's labor laws, even as they face outrageous sexual and physical abuses; are forced into 100-hour+ work weeks; and are held against their will with their passports confiscated by employers. All legal migrant workers in Qatar are tied to a sponsorship system, which effectively allows employers to deny migrants their exit visas. Workers often complain they are denied wages and are forced to live in unsanitary housing. The LGBT community in the state lacks any protection, as being homosexual is illegal there. Journalists who have attempted to report on these egregious human rights abuses were illegally detained and questioned last year.
It is imperative local Georgia governments and citizens of Atlanta are made aware of Qatar and Qatar Airways' litany of abuses against workers, including the airline's own employees, women and those in the LGBT community. All Americans should demand transparency and basic human rights for people everywhere, especially from those we allow to do business in our country.
