Qatar minister elected head UN labor conference

The labor minister of Qatar, which faced intense scrutiny over its treatment of migrant workers in the run-up to last year’s World Cup soccer tournament, was elected Monday as the president of the United Nations labor agency’s annual conference.
Asian and Pacific nations proposed Ali bin Samikh al-Marri to lead the International Labor Agency’s two-week conference in Geneva.
Regional groups take turns nominating the meeting’s chair.
After Qatar was named host of the 2022 World Cup, the labor conditions in a country where over 2 million migrants work in everything from construction jobs to service industries came under a spotlight.
Rights groups said workers faced unsafe working conditions, including extreme heat that had caused deaths, as well as exploitation by employers, despite reforms instituted by Qatar.
Qatari officials say stronger regulations over work conditions have been imposed under the reforms. They have said three workers died in workplace accidents connected to the construction of new stadiums for the World Cup over the past decade, along with 37 other stadium workers who died outside the workplace during that time.