Au désert. Népal – Qatar, le Vide et le vide, 2022
As part of a long personal and intimate journey on Nepal, Frédéric Lecloux documents the migration movements of the country. By sharing the daily life of Nepalese workers involved in the preparation of the World Cup taking place this November 21st in Qatar, his images shed light on an intolerable situation taking place in the whole Persian Gulf.
According to an investigation by the Guardian newspaper, 6,500 foreign workers have died since the country was awarded the football World Cup. The shiny infrastructure built to host the 2022 World Cup contrasts with the terrible working conditions of its workers, most of whom are Asian and African immigrants.
For the past 20 years, thousands of workers from Southeast Asia and Africa have left everything behind to work in the Persian Gulf. The awarding of the World Cup to Qatar in 2010 has reinforced this trend, and there are now nearly 2 million workers from this immigration background.
They came hoping to give their families a better life, but they soon discovered the other side of the coin of the long-awaited event. Passports were confiscated, wages were delayed and stolen, workers were forced to work in 40-degree weather without time limits, threats were made and insults were hurled at them… The Qatari government’s immense ambitions for the next World Cup are in fact based on the exploitation of its workers.
Nepal is one of the countries facing massive emigration to the Persian Gulf. In 2015, 1,500 Nepalese men were leaving their country every day to work abroad, 20% of them in Qatar. By photographing first mothers and wives in Nepal whose sons or husbands have left, and then these men in their living environment in Qatar (usually workers’ camps), Frédéric Lecloux delivers a precious testimony on their daily lives and the heartbreak of these families.
This photographic work was realized with the help of the CNAP grant and the book is co-published with Amnesty France.
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