The National Human Rights Committee’s (NHRC) two-day campaign to create awareness about labour rights encouraged people to complain against any exploitation.

The campaign ‘Together for Labour Rights’ saw representatives of the National Human Rights Committee on Monday and yesterday holding a banner and pamphlet campaign to educate people about labour rights and actions to be taken against any violation.

The awareness drive mainly aimed at the right of one day off from work per week, though people were told about other basic rights they should be granted at a work place.

National Human Rights Committee’s awareness both at the Lulu Hypermarket received a large number of visitors seeking advice. “We have been distributing so many pamphlets within two days,” said a National Human Rights Committee representative.

“Different people have different types of problems; it’s about leave, overtime, unpaid salary and various other kinds of it,” she said.

Many people visiting the booth also had showed interest in knowing how to lodge a complaint against any violation for their rights.

“The most interesting thing is many people have come back to us after getting the pamphlets, telling us about their problems and seeking advice,” said the National Human Rights Committee representative.

“We encourage them to call and lodge a complain at our hotline,” she added.

Annually the Human Rights Committee selects a group of companies to provide them training courses about human rights and labour rights and consolidate the legal knowledge to ensure the respect of the national legislation and the international conventions related to work.

The Qatari Labour Law No. (14) of 2004 adopts the principle of equality and non-discrimination in all rights and duties. This includes equality is reflected in the submission to the employment contract certified by the Labour Department.

The law stipulates the working hours to be 8 hours per day, in addition to annual leave, paid official holidays, the right to allowance of overtime hours and the end of service allowance.

It also stipulates the right to one day weekend for everyone; additionally, the health and medical care are on the employer’s expenses, besides paying the compensation value for work injuries and occupational illnesses.