Describe three ethical challenges involved in employing migrant labour from the perspective of an Australian company engaged in road construction in the Middle East.

Migrant workers in the Middle East In other parts of the world migrants make up a still larger proportion of the workforce. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Middle East, and the Persian Gulf in particular. Taken together, the Gulf states of Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE are the largest recipients of temporary migrant workers in the world. In some Gulf states, such as Qatar and the UAE, more than 80% of the population consists of non-nationals, the majority of whom are contract workers. Most of the foreign workers in the Middle East are Asian-the major countries of origin being Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Philippines, and Sri Lanka. Two-thirds of migrant workers are men, the major- ity of whom are engaged in low-skill occupations in production, construction, and service sectors. Women, meanwhile, have typically been employed in domestic service. Abuses of foreign workers in the Middle East have been documented for many years, but the issue made international headlines over a period of more than a decade from the mid-2010s, followingPART B Contextualizing Business Ethics reports of hundreds of foreign worker deaths and reputed conditions of 'modern-day slavery' in the construction boom generated when Qatar was awarded the right to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Thousands of construction workers from India and Nepal are recorded as having died, because of extreme temperatures, enforced 12-hour working days, and limited access to water. Evidence emerged of workers routinely having their documents confiscated, pay being withheld for months, inadequate safety standards, and squalid labour camps with overflowing sewage and insufficient water supply. Conditions were so bad, according to the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), that the Qatar World Cup construction would 'leave 4,000 migrant workers dead' before the tournament kicked off in 2022. Migrant workers are critical for the Qatar economy, but have long been plagued by limited rights and freedoms. There are 1.4 million migrant workers in Qatar, representing 94% of the country's entire labour force and approximately 85% of the population. However, the average migrant worker makes about $300 a month, compared to the average national salary of $2,140 a month and gross national income per capita of $80,000. So, while revenues from oil and natural gas have enabled Qatar to attain the highest GDP per capita in the world, the majority of its foreign workforce contin- ues to experience low salaries and poor working conditions. The plight of migrant workers in Qatar is exacerbated by the state-run 'kafala' sponsorship system, which also operates in Saudi Arabia and a number of other Gulf states. Under the kafala system, workers must have an in-country sponsor (typically their employer) who is responsible for their legal status. Workers are therefore unable to change jobs or leave the country without their sponsor's per- mission, making them highly dependent on their employer, and giving them limited means of seeking redress when faced with exploitation. Moreover, certain categories of workers in Qatar are excluded from labour law protections and only Qatari workers are allowed to form or join trade unions. Following revelations of systematic abuse of migrant workers in the construction industry in Qatar, organizations such as Amnesty International, the ILO, the ITUC, and the UN all called for Qatar to repeal or revise its labour laws in order to provide better protections for foreign workers. Companies involved in the construction sector were also urged to take action and institute more effective due diligence policies and procedures to prevent labour exploitation, including among subcontractors and suppliers, where much of the abuse was found to occur. Following a severe ruling by the ILO, the ITUC stated that companies were 'on notice that doing business with Qatar goes against internation- al laws. Until Qatar brings its laws in line with international norms, companies face the reputational and legal risks of using forced labour in Qatar." In the face of such major international pressure, the Qatari authorities made substantial reforms to their labour laws in 2014. This included a strengthening of laws related to recruitment agency fees, mandatory requirements for firms to pay workers by electronic bank transfer rather than arbi- trary cash payments, an end to foreign workers needing their employer's permission to leave the country or change jobs, and a commitment to phase out the kafala system. According to Amnesty International, it was a 'missed opportunity' that fell 'far short of the fundamental changes needed to address systemic abuses against migrant workers'. The problems continue. In a chilling reflection of the ongoing state of play in 2017, Human Rights Watch found that protection from heat and humid- ity was 'woefully inadequate', and that hundreds of construction workers were dying each year, and their deaths are by no means fully acknowledged or reported. They say that any initiatives in place only cover a tiny minority of workers. As World Cup fever takes over from concerns about how those beautiful stadia were created, in the run-up to the games, critics angrily claimed that Qatar's workers are actually enslaved, building mausoleums, not stadia