Human Trafficking in Mena Countries and Qatar: A Comparative Study
Creators: name: Almarri, Lolwa Ali
Publisher: name: Manara - Qatar Research Repository
Year: 2025
Subjects: classificationCode: 44
subject: Human society

description: The extent of trafficking in human labor in Qatar, since the beginning of its economic growth to date, remains understudied. This research not only sheds light on the phenomenon, but provides insight into the efficacy of governmental and legislative measures to combat the problem. A critique of current strategies for combating human trafficking as well as a review of how such approaches can be tailor-made to fit and curb the circumstances of human trafficking within Qatar, is thus provided. The research utilizes a comparative analysis employing the use of primary and secondary data obtained from various sources. As for the sample nations, they are comprised of Qatar and three other MENA nations namely, Egypt, UAE, and Saudi Arabia. The reasoning behind the use of these nations was to include countries with different economic, social and political conditions. Finally, these MENA nations are contrasted with the United Kingdom as a means of providing a comparative analysis between so-called developed and developing economies. As for the materials, the research relied particularly on the use of primary data from trusted archives such as the United Nations, the human rights watch, amnesty international among others that were necessary in conducting this research. Procedurally, it entailed a comparative analysis of the countries mentioned above which were then further contrasted against the conditions in the United Kingdom. Because of the contested nature of the data bases, the use of comparative analysis helps explain whether a correlation between higher rates of trafficking exist where there is a lack of political and economic will to tackle the issue. The data does indicate, however, that higher rates of trafficking exist among immigrants as opposed to citizens because of the social status that immigrants hold. These results would also serve to provide insight concerning the driving forces behind the apparent lack of political will in sensitizing the citizenry concerning human trafficking and the plight of its victims. The results showed that human trafficking in Qatar can be mitigated via legislative creation and enforcement, however, the largest impact would be caused by a shift in the political, economic and capitalist will of the citizens as well as the provision of adequate legislation. The limitations to this assertion are made evident by the lack of adequate procedural channels for combatting trafficking as well as the limited available information on countries such as Saudi Arabia. Additionally, the inability to confirm the validity of the data collected was another major hindrance since a majority of the official government databases contrast the data provided by accredited international organizations. Nonetheless, the implications for these results should compel the creation of legislation that is oriented toward changing the political, economic and capitalist will of the people as opposed to the emphasizing on human rights law expansion given that the laws on the latter are already in place. What this means is that human rights laws are not sufficient in tackling the labor trafficking issue that Qatar is facing because there is very poor precedence of these laws being followed. As such the mentioned nations should invest in the creation of strategies that aim to change the social, political and economic will of the people with regard to the mitigation of labor trafficking.