The ITUC welcomed the International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) decision yesterday to reject Qatar’s false and misleading claims that it had ended the kafala system, giving it until November to force a change.

The bloodstained Gulf state submitted a document to the ILO last week concerning the system which has been likened to modern slavery, after the ITUC lodged a complaint in June 2014.

The ILO’s governing body decided that Qatar failed to demonstrate that it had abolished the system, despite the unprecedented deployment of dozens of lobbyists at the meeting aiming to shut down any possibility of the UN body’s strongest compliance procedure being applied.

Worker delegates at the ILO, with the support of representatives of employers and governments of democratic countries, refused an attempt by Sudan and the United Arab Emirates to water down the decision, denying Qatar a propaganda coup.

ITUC general secretary Sharan Burrow said: “Qatar is on notice and has until November when the ILO will revisit this case. The government has refused any serious reform in the years since it was awarded the 2022 Fifa World Cup and ILO delegates have rejected the false and misleading claims made by Qatar in its report to the ILO this month. There is still hope for the more than two million migrant workers in Qatar, many of them trapped there and forced to work against their will.

“Governments, unions and business can see that Qatar has a choice. It can choose to stop the use of modern slavery and meet its international legal obligations on workers’ rights by, abolishing exit permits, introducing a minimum wage and ending the race-based system of wages, establishing an independent grievance procedure and allowing workers representation.

“International businesses working in Qatar don’t want to see their workers or their reputation sullied by modern slavery.”

More than two million migrant workers are still subject to pervasive violations of basic human rights, including being forced to stay in Qatar against their will for up to five years by employers who can still legally take their workers’ passports, as well as workers having no minimum wage and wages still being set according to nationality rather than the job the worker does.

“This decision will also increase pressure on Fifa, which has pledged human rights respect in its major events after 2022, but so far failed to use its enormous leverage on Qatar to ensure real reform, and respect for international labour and human rights standards,” said Burrow.

The decision on Qatar’s progress on labour reform in November will come five years before the World Cup.