Qatar wage protections flawed: rights group

Qatari efforts to ensure payment of worker salaries in the gas-rich emirate  "falls short" of international standards, Human Rights Watch said in a report on Saturday.

Most of the country's 2.75 million residents, 90 percent of whom are foreigners, are from poor developing countries working on projects linked to the 2022 World Cup.

Officials established a wage protection scheme (WPS) in 2015 to detect non-payment of salaries following criticism of its labour rights record from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch among others.

But HRW says one unnamed Qatari employer failed to pay managers for five months and labourers for two months, highlighting issues in the labour ministry's monitoring of wage non-payment.

The company's projects include a World Cup stadium in Doha and road construction. It employs around 6,000 people and some workers' outstanding salaries were only paid after a number of affected staff staged protest action, HRW said.

Unauthorised public protests and trade union activism are illegal in Qatar.