Qatar is a sovereign Arab emirate, located in Western Asia, occupying the small Qatar Peninsula on the northeasterly coast of the much larger Arabian Peninsula. Its sole land border is with Saudi Arabia to the south, with the rest of its territory surrounded by the Persian Gulf. A strait in the Persian Gulf separates Qatar from the nearby island kingdom of Bahrain.
Qatar has the world's third-largest natural gas reserves and oil reserves of over 25 billion barrels which have fueled Qatar to become the world's richest country per capita and achieve the highest human development in the Arab World and the 36th highest globally; furthermore, it is recognized as a high-income economy by the World Bank and also the 19th most peaceful country in the world.
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Working on Al Udeid Air Base
Al Udeid Air Base is a military base west of Doha, Qatar, also known as Abu Nakhlah Airport. It houses foreign coalition personnel and assets. It is host to a forward headquarters of United States Central Command, headquarters of United States Air Forces Central, No. 83 Expeditionary Air Group RAF, and the 379th Air Expeditionary Wing of the USAF. In 1999, the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad, reportedly told US officials that he would like to see as many as 10,000 US servicemen permanently stationed at Al Udeid.
In the City
Most Expats would say at first glance, “Why does every petrol station I’m passing seem to be closed?” but in Qatar, you don’t get out of the car to fill up that's why. A pump attendant does it, even during the summer, when it can get up to 50C outside. GAs in Qatar is cheaper than bottled water, a four-liter 4x4 costs around $20 to fill up.
Many Expats that live downtown also have their housemaids who take care of the cleaning, laundry, and, in many cases, the children. Eating out is a national pastime; Friday brunches pack enough food in to last you a week, and if you sit outside a fast-food restaurant in your car and beep your horn, someone will come to take your order – and bring it to you when it’s ready.
BACKGROUND: This report provides Department of Defense (DoD) contractor personnel numbers for 3rd quarter Fiscal Year 2022 (FY22) and the current status of efforts underway to improve management of contractors accompanying United States (U.S.) Forces. It includes data on DoD contractor personnel deployed in Iraq and Syria, Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR) and the U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM) area of responsibility (AOR).
KEY POINTS: During 3rd quarter FY22, USCENTCOM reported approximately 20,278 contractor personnel supporting DoD in the USCENTCOM AOR, an increase of approximately 289 from the previous quarter.
DoD Contractor Personnel in the USCENTCOM AOR
OIR (Iraq and Syria) Summary
The distribution of contractors in Iraq and Syria by mission category are:
Base Support 1,794 (26.8%) Construction 395 (5.9%) IT/Communications Support 281 (4.2%) Logistics/Maintenance 1,707 (25.5%) Management/Administrative 362 (5.4%) Medical/Dental/Social Services 80 (1.2%) Other 114 (1.7%) Security 804 (12.0%) Training 20 (0.3%) Translator/Interpreter 516 (7.7%) Transportation 623 (9.3%)
On her very first day in Antarctica, one woman was warned to aviod a certain building as NSF McMurdo Station unless [she] wanted to be raped.
Another was so "freaked out"by the pervassive sexual harrassment that she began carrying around a hammer.
Sexual assault and sexual harassment "are a fact of life" in Antarctica, another woman said, "just like the fact that Antarctica is cold and the wind blows."
The report, presented to the NSF in June and publicly released last week, is based on more than 80 interviews with individuals and focus groups, along with a survey of 880 current and recent employees. Many of the report's interviewees are anonymous.
"It wasn't surprising to me to hear some of the stories that we heard," said Roberta Marinelli, the director of the NSF's Office of Polar Programs, in an interview with NPR. "It's certainly disappointing."
Many employees view sexual harassment as a problem
The NSF oversees all American operations in Antarctica. Each year, more than 3,000 scientists, contractors and military personnel are sent to the continent for programs under NSF's jurisdiction. About one in three of them are women.
In the report's survey, 72% of female respondents agreed that sexual harassment was a problem. Just under half agreed that sexual assault was a problem. (Among male employees responding to the survey, about half and a third agreed that harassment and assault were problems.)
"Every woman I knew down there had an assault or harassment experience that had occurred on ice," one interviewee told the report's authors. Although incidents involving female victims were "much more frequent and severe," the report stated, several men also recounted experiencing sexual harassment by men and women.
Officials at the NSF commissioned the report in April 2021 after years of individual reports of sexual harassment.
A remote and difficult workplace
Antarctica is an unusually challenging environment for these kinds of allegations. Its remoteness often means people cannot leave for weeks or months at a time.
You're so isolated and so detached from the normal roles in society that often it makes it, for lack of a better word, easier to get away with inappropriate behavior," said Meredith Nash, an Australian researcher who did not participate in the NSF report.
When people are out doing deep field work, not only do they not have the capacity to report, because you can't call someone or send an email or whatever – if you're working with your harasser, you literally can't get away from them," said Nash, who now serves as an associate dean of Diversity, Belonging, Inclusion and Equity at the Australian National University.
Up until now, incidents have been reported as one-offs. In 2018, the name of a seven-mile-long glacier was changed after its namesake, the geologist David Marchant, was accused of sexually harassing female graduate students. He was later fired from his job at Boston University. In a statement at the time, he denied the allegations.
In a separate incident, the NSF says it received a report of a rape at one of its facilities within the past five years. The agency says it "promptly" referred the allegation to the Department of Justice.
The problems go well beyond scientists. Of the thousands of people working in Antarctica under the NSF each year, about 800 are researchers. The rest are support staff, including cooks, janitors, and maintenance workers, many of them employed on seasonal contracts.
"I don't feel I have a choice but to do anything other than meet this challenge head on," said Marinelli. "We have an obligation to provide a safe work environment, to provide workplace safety and workplace development opportunities for anyone who wants to come to Antarctica."
